49th  Congress, 
Ist  Session, 


SENATE. 


j  Report 
\  No.  70. 


IN  THE  SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


February  2,  1886.— Ordered  to  be  printed. 


Mr.  Blair,  from  the  Select  Committee  on  Woman  Suffrage,  submitted 

the  following 

REPORT: 

[To  accompany  S.  Res.  5.  ] 

The  Committee  on  Woman  Suffrage,  to  whom  was  referred  Senate 
resolution  No.  5,  being  "  Joint  resolution  proposing  an  amendment  to  the 
Constitution  of  the  IJuited  States  extending  the  right  of  suffrage  to 
women,"  have  considered  the  same,  and  report  thereon  favorablj',  and 
do  recommend  that  the  article  proposed  in  said  resolution  be  submitted 
to  the  legislatures  of  the  several  States  for  ratification,  as  an  amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

The  joint  resolution  is  in  the  following  words  : 

Joint  Resolution  proposing  an  amendraeut  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  extending  the 

right  of  suffrage  to  women. 

Resolved  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States  of  America  in 
Congress  assembled  {tivo-thirds  of  each  House  concurring  therein),  That  the  following 
article  be  proposed  to  the  legislatures  of  the  several  States  as  an  amendment  to  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States;  which,  when  ratified  by  three-fourths  of  the  said 
legislatures,  shall  be  valid  as  part  of  said  Constitution,  namelj^: 

Article  — . 

Section  1,  The  right  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  to  vote  shall  not  be  denied 
or  abridged  by  the  United  States  or  by  any  State  on  account  of  sex. 

Sec.  2.  The  Congress  shall  have  power,  by  appropriate  legislation,  to  enforce  the 
provisions  of  this  article. 

The  proposition  to  amend  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  by 
extending  suffrage  to  women  has  been  several  times  considered  hj  com- 
mittees of  the  Senate,  and  in  the  form  herein  recommended  was  reported 
favorably  to  the  Senate  by  the  Committees  on  Woman  Suffrage  of  the 
Forty-seventh  and  the  Forty-eighth  Congresses,  but  by  the  pressure 
of  other  important  matter  its  consideration  and  action  thereon  b}'  the 
Senate  was  prevented. 

The  report  of  the  majority  of  the  committee  in  the  Forty-seventh  Con- 
gress was  able  and  elaborate,  but  too  long  for  citation  here.  That  of 
the  Forty-eighth  Congress  was  a  condensed  and  vigorous  general  state- 
ment of  the  subject,  and  we  incorporate  the  same  with  this  expression 
of  the  views  of  your  committee  : 

[Senate  Report  No.  399,  Forty-eighth  Congress,  first  session.] 

The  Committee  on  Woman  Suffrage  submit  the  following  report,  to  accompany  Senate  joint 
resolution  19,  proposing  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States: 

"All  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United  States  and  subject  to  the  jurisdiction 
thereof  are  citizens  of  the  United  States  and  of  the  State  wherein  they  reside."  (XIV 
amendment,  section  1.) 


2 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


Women  are  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United  States,  and  are  therefore  citi- 
zens of  the  United  States  and  of  the  States  in  which  they  reside. 

"  No  State  shall  make  or  enforce  any  law  that  shall  abridge  the  privileges  or  immu- 
nities of  citizens  of  the  United  States;  nor  shall  any  State  deprive  any  person  of  life, 
liberty,  or  property  without  due  process  of  law,  nor  deny  to  any  person  within  its 
jurisdiction  the  equal  protection  of  the  laws." 

The  privileges  and  immunities  of  women  citizens  are  abridged  by  the  several  States 
in  many  ways.  The  fundamental  privilege — "the  right  of  citizens  to  vote" — is  not 
only  abridged,  but  in  most  of  the  States  totally  denied. 

It  is  to  be  considered  that  in  adopting  this  resolution  Congress  by  no  means  im- 
poses woman  suffrage  upon  the  country ;  nor  does  it  necessarily  even  declare  in  its 
favor.  But  in  view  of  the  extent  of  the  agitation  upon  the  sirt)ject,  and  of  the  num- 
ber and  respectability  of  the  petitioners  in  its  favor,  Congress  simply  takes  the  initia- 
tive to  submit  the  question  to  the  people  of  the  several  States  through  their  respective 
legislatures. 

The  Constitution  is  wisely  conservative  in  the  provisions  for  its  own  amendment. 
And  your  committee  deem  it  eminently  proper  in  view  of  the  rapidly  increasing  num- 
bers who  have  for  the  last  eighteen  years  so  earnestly,  persistently,  and  patiently 
indicated  a  desire  for  an  amendment,  that  the  amending  power,  the  State  legislatures, 
should  be  consulted. 

We  therefore  report  back  the  proposed  resolution  for  the  consideration  of  the  Sen- 
ate, and  recommend  its  passage. 

The  committee  append  hereto  the  remarks  made  before  this  committee,  on  March 
7,  1884,  and  also  the  remarks  made  before  the  Senate  Judiciary  Committee,  printed 
in  Senate  Mis.  Doc.  No.  74,  Forty-seventh  Congress,  first  session,  as  a  part  of  this 
rej)ort. 

T.  W.  PALMER. 
H.  W.  BLAIR. 
E.  G.  LAPHAM. 

My  view  of  the  subject  is  embodied  in  my  qualified  assent  to  the  report  heretofore 
made. 

H.  B.  ANTHONY. 

The  following  is  the  assent  of  Senator  Anthony  to  the  report  of  the  Committee  on 
Woman  Suffrage  in  the  Forty- seventh  Congress,  above  referred  to : 

"The  Constitution  is  wisely  conservative  in  the  provision  of  its  own  amendment. 
It  is  eminently  proper  that  whenever  a  large  number  of  the  people  have  indicated  a 
desire  for  an  amendment  the  judgment  of  the  amending  power  should  be  consulted. 
In  view  of  the  extensive  agitation  of  the  question  of  woman  suffrage,  and  the  numer- 
ous and  respectable  petitions  that  have  been  presented  to  Congress  in  its  support,  I 
unite  with  the  committee  in  recommending  that  the  proposed  amendment  be  submitted 
to  the  States. 

'*H.  B.  ANTHONY." 

To  this  statement  of  the  Committee  on  Woman  Suffrage  of  the  48th 
Congress,  we  desire  to  add  but  little  in  the  way  of  discussion  of  the 
merits  of  the  proposition  to  extend  the  suffrage  to  women,  but  have 
thought  proper  to  make  a  few  suggestions  in  support  of  the  right  itself 
before  passing  to  the  main  question,  which  is  that  of  the  justice  and  pro- 
priety of  granting  the  petition  of  woman  to  be  heard  in  support  of  her 
demand  for  this  amendment  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
before  the  people  of  the  States,  by  whom  alone  the  question  can  be  de- 
cided. 

The  rights  for  the  maintenance  of  which  human  governments  are  con- 
stituted are  life,  liberty,  and  property.  These  rights  are  common  to 
men  and  women  alike,  and  whatever  citizen  or  subject  exists  as  a  mem- 
ber of  any  body  i^olitic  under  any  form  of  government,  is  entitled  to 
demand  from  the  sovereign  power  the  full  protection  of  these  rights. 

This  right  to  the  protection  of  rights  appertains  to  the  individual, 
not  to  the  family  alone,  or  to  any  form  of  association,  whether  social  or 
corporate.  Probably  not  more  than  five-eighths  of  the  men  of  legal  age, 
qualified  to  vote,  are  heads  of  families,  and  not  more  than  that  propor- 
tion of  adult  women  are  united  with  men  in  the  legal  merger  of  married 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


3 


life.  It  is  therefore  quite  incorrect  to  speak  of  the  state  as  an  ag^^re- 
gate  of  families  duly  represented  at  the  ballot-box  by  their  male  liead. 
The  relation  between  the  government  and  the  individual  is  direct;  all 
rights  are  individual  rights,  all  duties  are  individual  duties. 

Government  in  its  two  highest  lunctions  is  legislative  and  judicial. 
By  these  i)owers  tlie  sovereignty  ])rescribes  the  law,  and  directs  its  ap- 
plication to  ihe  vindication  of  rights  and  the  redress  of  wrongs.  Con- 
science and  intelligence  are  the  only  forces  which  enter  into  the  exer- 
cise of  this  highest  and  primary  function  of  government.  The  remain- 
ing department  is  the  executive  or  administrative,  and  in  all  forms  of 
government — the  republican  as  well  as  in  tyranny — the  primary'  element 
of  administration  is  force,  and  even  in  this  department  conscience  and 
intelligence  are  indispensable  to  its  direction. 

It  now  we  are  to  decide  who  of  our  sixty  millions  of  human  beings 
are  to  constitute  the  citizenship  of  this  Kepublic  and  by  virtue  of  their 
qualifications  to  be  the  law-making  power,  by  what  tests  shall  the  se- 
lection be  determined? 

The  suffrage  which  is  the  sovereignty  is  this  great  primary  law- 
making power.  It  is  not  the  executive  power  proper  at  all.  It  is  not 
founded  upon  force.  Only  that  degree  of  physical  strength  which  is 
essential  to  a  sound  body — the  home  of  the  healthy  mental  and  moral 
constitution — the  sound  soul  in  the  sound  body  is  required  in  the  per- 
formance of  the  function  of  primary  legislation.  Never  in  the  history 
of  t]iis  or  any  other  genuine  Republic  has  the  law-making  power,  whether 
in  general  elections  or  in  the  framing  of  laws  in  legislative  assemblies, 
been  vested  in  individuals  who  have  exercised  it  by  reason  of  their 
physical  powers.  On  the  contrary,  the  physically  weak  have  never  for 
that  reason  been  deprived  of  the  suffrage  nor  of  the  privilege  of  service 
in  the  public  councils,  so  long  as  they  possessed  the  necessary  powers 
of  locomotion  and  expression,  of  conscience  and  intelligence  which  are 
common  to  all.  The  aged  and  the  physically  weak  have,  as  a  rule,  by 
reason  of  superior  wisdom  and  moral  sense  far  more  than  made  good 
any  bodily  inferiority  by  which  they  have  differed  from  the  more  robust 
members  of  the  community  in  the  discussions  and  decisions  of  the 
ballot-box  and  in  councils  of  the  state. 

The  executive  power  of  itself  is  a  mere  physical  instrumentality — an 
animal  quality — and  it  is  confided  from  necessity  to  those  individuals 
who  possess  that  quality,  but  always  with  danger,  except  so  far  as 
wisdom  and  virtue  control  its  exercise.  And  it  is  obvious  that  the 
greater  the  mass  of  higher  and  spiritual  forces,  whether  found  in  those 
to  whom  the  execution  of  the  law  is  assigned  or  in  the  great  mass  by 
whom  the  suffrage  is  exercised,  and  who  direct  the  execution  of  the  law, 
the  greater  will  be  the  safety  and  the  surer  will  be  the  happiness  of  the 
state. 

It  is  too  late  to  q\iestion  the  intellectual  and  moral  capacity  of  woman 
to  understand  great  political  issues  (which  are  always  primarily  questions 
of  conscience — questions  of  the  intelligent  application  of  the  principles 
of  right  and  of  wrong  in  public  and  private  affairs)  and  properly  decide 
them  at  the  polls.    Indeed,  so  far  as  your  committee  are  aware,  the  pre- 

I  tense  is  no  longer  advanced  that  woman  should  not  vote  by  reason  of 
her  mental  or  moral  unfitness  to  perform  this  legislative  function;  but 
the  suffrage  is  denied  to  her  because  she  cannot  hang  criminals,  sup- 

•  press  mobs,  nor  handle  the  enginery  of  war.  We  have  already  seen 
the  untenable  nature  of  this  assumption,  because  those  who  make  it  be- 

I  stow  the  suffrage  upon  very  large  classes  of  men  who,  however  well 
qualified  they  may  be  to  vote,  are  physically  unable  to  perform  any  of 

I 


4 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


the  duties  wbicli  api)eitaiii  to  tbe  execution  of  the  law  and  the  defense 
of  the  state.  Scarcely  a  Senator  on  this  floor  is  liable  by  law  to  per- 
form a  military  or  other  administrative  duty,  yet  the  rule  so  many  set 
up  aj>'ainst  the  right  of  women  to  vote  would  disfranchise  nearly  this 
whole  body. 

But  it  is  unnecessary  to  grant  that  woman  cannot  fight.  History  is 
full  of  examples  of  her  heroism  in  danger,  of  her  endurance  and  forti- 
tude in  trial,  and  of  her  indispensable  and  supreme  service  in  hospital 
and  field  ;  and  in  the  handling  of  the  deft  and  horrible  machinery  and 
infernal  agencies  which  science  and  art  have  prepared  and  are  prepar- 
ing for  human  destruction  in  future  wars,  woman  may  perform  her  whole 
part  in  the  common  assault  or  the  common  defense.  It  is  hardly  worth 
while  to  consider  this  trivial  objection  that  she  is  incompetent  for  pur- 
poses of  national  murder  or  of  bloody  self-defense  as  the  basis  of  tbe  denial 
of  a  great  fundamental  right,  when  we  consider  that  if  that  right  were 
given  to  her  she  would  by  its  exercise  almost  certainly  abolish  this  great 
crime  of  the  nations,  which  has  always  inflicted  upon  her  the  chief  burden 
of  w  oe. 

But  your  committee  have  not  thought  best  at  this  time  to  enter  at  large 
upon  a  general  discussion  of  the  right  or  fitness  of  woman  to  vote  in  the 
abstract,  and  hence,  with  these  suggestions  as  to  the  true  nature  of  the 
suffrage  itself,  which  is  a  mental  and  moral  and  not  a  physical  opera- 
tion, and  of  the  inadequacy  and  injustice  of  the  theory  of  representation 
of  the  w  hole  community,  including  woman,  by  the  male  heads  of  families, 
as  wxll  as  of  the  absurd  and  illogical  objection  based  upon  physical  in- 
capacity, we  pass  to  a  brief  consideration  of  the  main  question,  which 
is.  Shall  the  cause  of  woman  be  heard  when  she  asks  this  amendment 
to  the  National  Constitution? 

Your  committee  believe  that  thpe  nature  of  our  Government,  being  one 
by  written  constitutions  and  laws,  which  must,  like  the  people  theujselves, 
be  subject  to  progression  and  change,  demands  as  the  only  safeguard 
against  violence,  if  not  of  destruction,  that  whenever  Sinj  considerable 
body  of  the  people  desire  to  be  heard  in  the  arena  of  legislation,  whether 
in  Congress,  the  State  law-making  assemblies,  or  before  the  great  body 
of  sovereigns  at  large,  it  becomes  an  absolute  duty  to  grant  that  re- 
quest under  the  forms  which  those  constitutions  and  laws  have  pre- 
scribed. What,  then,  is  the  fact  as  to  the  existence  of  any  such  con- 
siderable body  of  American  citizens  desiring  an  opportunity  to  petition 
for  a  redress  of  grievances  by  the  extension  of  suffrage  to  women  I 

This  movement  for  woman  suffrage  has  developed  during  the  last  half 
century  into  one  of  great  strength.  The  first  petition  was  presented 
to  the  legislature  of  New  York  in  1835.  It  was  repeated  in  1846,  and 
since  that  time  the  petition  has  been  urged  upon  nearly  every  legisla- 
ture in  the  Northern  States.  Five  States  have  voted  upon  the  question 
of  amending  their  constitutions  by  striking  out  the  word  '*male"  from 
tbe  suffrage  clause — Kansas  in  1867,  Michigan  in  1874,  Colorado  in 
1877,  Nebraska  in  1882,  and  Oregon  in  1884. 

The  ratio  of  the  popular  vote  in  each  case  was  about  one-third  for  the 
amendment  and  two-thirds  against  it.  Three  Territories  have  or  have 
had  full  suffrage  for  women.  In  two,  Wyoming  since  1869  and  Wash- 
ington since  1883,  the  experiment  (!)  is  an  unqualified  success.  In  Utah 
Miss  Anthony  keenly  and  justly  observes  that  suffrage  is  as  much  of  a 
success  for  the  Mormon  w  omen  as  for  the  men. 

In  eleven  States  school  suffrage  for  women  exists.  In  Kansas,  from 
her  admission  as  a  State.  In  Kentucky  and  Michigan  fully  as  long  a 
time.    School  suffrage  for  women  also  exists  in  Colorado,  Minnesota, 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


5 


UTew  Hampshire,  Massachusetts,  Vermont,  New  York,  Nebraska,  and 
Oregon. 

In  all  these  States,  except  Minnesota,  scliool  suffrage  was  extended 
to  women  by  tlie  respective  legishitures,  and  in  Minnesota  by  the  pop- 
ular vote,  in  November,  187G.  Not  only  these  eleven  States,  but  in 
nearly  all  the  other  Northern  and  Western  States  women  are  elected  to 
the  offices  of  county  and  city  superintendent  of  i)ublic  schools  and  as 
members  of  school  boards.  In  Louisiana  the  constitution  of  1879  makes 
women  eligible  to  school  offices. 

It  may  also  be  observed  as  indicating  a  rising  and  controlling  public 
sentiment  in  recognition  of  the  right  and  cai)acity  of  woman  for  public 
affairs  that  she  is  eligible  to  such  offices  as  that  of  county  clerk,  register 
of  deeds,  and  the  like  in  many  and  ])erhaps  in  all  the  States.  Kansas 
and  Iowa  elected  several  women  to  these  positions  in  the  election  of 
November,  1885,  while  President  Grant  alone  appointed  more  than  five 
thousand  women  to  the  office  of  i)ostmaster ;  and  although  many  women 
have  been  appointed  in  the  Departments  and  to  i)ension  agencies  and 
like  im])ortant  emi)loyments  and  trusts,  so  far  as  your  committee  are 
aware  no  charge  of  incompetency  or  of  nuilfeasance  in  office  has  ever 
yet  been  sustained  against  a  woman. 

It  may  be  further  stated  in  this  connection  that  m^arly  every  North- 
ern State  has  had  before  it  from  time  to  time  since  1870  a  bill  for  the 
submission  of  the  question  of  woman  suffrage  to  the  popular  vote.  In 
some  instances  such  a  resolution  has  been  passed  at  one  session  and 
failed  to  be  ratified  at  another  by  from  one  to  three  votes  ;  thus  Iowa 
passed  it  in  1870,  killed  it  in  1872;  passed  it  in  1874,  failed  to  do  so  in 
1876  ;  j)assed  it  in  1878,  and  failed  in  1880 :  passed  it  again  in  1882,  and 
defeated  it  in  1884;  four  times  over  and  over,  and  this  winter  these 
heroic  and  indomitable  women  are  trying  it  in  Iowa  again. 

If  men  were  to  make  such  a  struggle  for  their  rights  it  would  be 
considered  a  fine  thing,  and  th^re  would  be  books  and  even  poetry 
written  about  it. 

In  New  York,  since  1880,  the  women  have  urged  this  great  measure 
before  the  legislature  each  year.  There  it  takes  the  form  of  a  bill  to 
prohibit  the  disfranchisement  of  women.  This  bill  has  several  times 
come  within  five  votes  of  passing  the  assembly. 

In  many  States  well  sustained  efforts  for  municipal  suffrage  have 
been  made,  and,  as  if  in  rebuke  to  the  conservatism,  or  worse,  of  this 
^•reat  Re})ublic,  this  right  of  municipal  suffrage  is  already  enjoyed  in 
the  i)rovince  of  Ontario,  Canada,  and  throughout  the  island  of  Great 
Britain  by  unmarried  women  to  the  same  extent  as  by  men,  there  being 
the  same  property  qualification  required  of  eaeh. 

The  movement  for  the  amendment  of  the  National  Constitution  be- 
gan by  petitioning  Congress  December,  18()r),  and  since  1800  there  have 
been  consecutive  applications  to  every  Congress  praying  for  the  sub- 
mission to  the  IStates  of  a  proposition  similar  v'o  the  joint  resolution 
herewith  revmrted  to  the  Senate. 

The  petitions  have  come  from  all  parts  of  the  country  ;  more  especially 
from  the  Northern  and  Western  States,  although  there  is  an  extensive 
and  increasing  desire  for  the  suffrage  existing  among  the  women  in  the 
Southern  States,  as  we  are  informed  by  those  whose  interest  in  the  sub- 
ject makes  them  familiar  with  the  real  state  of  feeling  in  that  part  of 
our  country.  It  is  impossible  to  know  just  what  proportion  of  the  i)eo- 
ple — men  and  women — have  expressed  their  desire  by  petition  to  the 
national  legislature  during  the  last  twenty  years,  but  we  are  informed 
by  Miss  Anthony  that  in  the  year  1871  Senator  Sumner  collected  the 


6 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


petitioDsfrom  the  files  of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  and 
that  there  were  then  an  immense  number.  A  far  greater  number  have 
been  presented  since  that  time,  and  the  same  lady  is  our  authority  for 
the  estimate' that  in  all  more  than  two  hundred  thousand  petitions,  by 
select  and  representative  men  and  women,  have  been  poured  upon  Oon- 
jiress  in  behalf  of  this  prayer  of  woman  to  be  free.  Who  is  so  interested 
in  the  framing  of  the  law  as  woman,  whose  only  defense  is  the  law  ? 
There  never  was  a  stronger'exhibition  of  popular  demand  by  American 
citizens  to  be  heard  in  the  court  of  the  people  for  the  vindication  of  a 
fun dn mental  right. 

We  insist  earnestly  that  the  real  question  is  not  whether  woman  shall 
be  enfranchised,  but  whether  the  sense  of  the  great  American  law-making 
power  shall  be  taken ;  whether  the  people  who  can  vote  shall  hear  the 
petition  of  the  disfranchised  half  of  the  community  to  be  allowed  the 
exercise  of  the  fundamental  right  of  freemen ;  shall  one  half  the  citi- 
zens of  America  who  are  not  free  be  heard  by  the  other  half  who  gov- 
ern the  whole  on  their  petition  to  be  allowed  the  exercise  of  their  own 
judgment  and  conscience  in  making  the  laws  which  fix  their  destinj^  ? 
It  is  not  a  question  whether  the  suffrage  shall  be  granted  to  woman ;  it 
is  the  other  still  greater  question  denied  never  but  to  the  slave;  and, 
then,  and  for  that  reason,  God  smote  the  nation  until  the  hills  w^ere  red 
with  blood  and  the  valleys  were  heaped  with  slain. 

Shall  woman  be  denied  the  right  to  be  heard?  Shall  she  be  denied 
the  right  to  petition?  That  is  the  question.  She  desires  to  petition 
the  voters  in  the  States,  who  alone  can  grant  her  request,  that  she  her- 
self may  vote.  She  desires  to  vote  in  the  national  elections  and  in 
those  of  the  States. 

By  the  Constitution  of  the  land  Congress  can  confer  no  such  power; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  through  Congress  she  can  best  advance  her 
plea  to  the  great  tribunal  of  the  people  themselves,  where  she  can  be 
heard  and  her  cause  be  decided.  It  is  no  answer  to  this  just  demand  of 
American  citizens — for  women  are  citizens,  even  though  they  cannot 
vote — to  tell  her  that  in  our  opinion  she  has  no  right  to  vote;  that  she 
is  unfit  to  vote ;  that  she  is  too  good  or  that  she  is  too  bad  to  vote;  that 
she  cannot  tight,  or  that  she  is  too  much  an  angel  or  incompetent;  that 
not  until  they  all  desire  to  vote  shall  any  one  of  them  be  allowed  to 
vote;  that  we  can  perform  that  duty  and  exercise  that  right,  and  will 
discharge  for  her  the  functions  of  thought,  conscience,  and  will.  She 
has  the  right  to  petition.  Through  us  she  can  petition.  Not  to  us,  but 
by  us  as  an  agency  to  transmit  her  plaint  by  the  solemn  forms  of  the 
law  to  the  people  in  the  States.  Nor  can  we  reply  to  her  that  the  suf- 
frage is  a  matter  wholly  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  States.  Even  if 
it  were,  it  would  still  be  competent  and  desirable  for  her  to  petition  for 
the  cession  of  the  right,  that  it  may  be  locked  uj)  in  the  impregnable 
provisions  of  the  National  Constitution,  safe  from  the  adverse  action 
and  fluctuations  of  feeling  in  the  several  States. 

The  individual  States  cannot  amend  the  National  Constitution,  save 
as  it  is  done  under  the  forms  of  the  already  existing  Constitution  and 
the  prior  exercise  of  the  power  of  submission  of  her  petition  by  the  two- 
thirds  vote  of  the  national  legislative  power  to  the  peoi)le,  that  she  may 
by  argument,  entreaty,  and  the  blessing  of  God  prevail  with  her  breth- 
ren and  masters  in  three- fourths  of  the  legislatures  of  these  States. 

The  majority  of  your  committee  are  persuaded,  whatever  may  be  their 
individual  opinions  upon  the  question  of  the  desired  extension  of  the 
suffrage  itself,  that  it  is  a  dangerous  and  tyrannical  act  to  throttle  these 
women  who  are  pleading  only  to  be  heard. 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


7 


Wearied  with  a  half  century  of  watching  and  labor,  limited  and  fet- 
tered in  material  resources,  without  the  co  operation  of  parties  and  other 
organizations,  with  no  weapons  save  her  cause  and  her  voice,  conscious 
of  her  equality  with  her  brethren  in  all  that  constitutes  ujmght  ftnd 
capable  citizenship,  feeling,  although  she  may  seldom  express,  a  deep 
sense  of  wrong  in  the  butfetings  and  denial  of  her  long  withheld  natural 
right,  a  vast  number  of  the  women  of  our  country  are  ])raying  for  the 
realization  of  their  hopes  through  the  more  convenient,  comprehensive^ 
and  equally  legitimate  action  of  Congress  and  three-fourths  of  the  sev- 
eral States. 

Profoundly  impressed  with  the  importance  and  solemn  nature  of  the 
subject  and  of  the  grievous  wrong  of  longer  denial  of  the  right  of  peti- 
tion to  the  vast  number  of  our  mothers,  sisters,  daughters,  and  wives, 
who  plead  for  and  righteously  demand  it  through  our  indispensable  and 
constitutional  action,  your  committee  report  back  favorably  and  earn- 
estlv  recommend  the  adoption  of  the  joint  resolution. 

HENRY  W.  BLAIR. 

THOMAS  W.  PALMER. 

JONATHAN  CHACE. 

THOMAS  M.  BOWEN. 


APPENDIX. 


ARGUMENTS    BEFORE    THE    SELECT    COMMITTEE    ON  WOMAN 
SUFFRAGE,  UNITED  STATES  SENATE,  MARCH  7,  1884, 

BY 

A  committee  of  the  Sixteenth  Annual  Washington  Convention  of  the  Na- 
tional Woman  Suffrage  Association  in  favor  of  a  sixteenth  amendment 
to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  that  shall  protect  the  right  of 
women  citizens  to  vote  in  the  several  States  of  the  Union. 

ORDER  OF  PROCEEDING. 

The  Chairman  (Senator  Cockrell).  We  have  allotted  the  time  to  be  divided  as 
the  speakers  may  desire  among  themselves.    We  are  now  Aady  to  hear  the  ladies. 

Miss  Susan  B.  Anthony.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen  of  the  select  committee : 
This  is  the  sixteenth  time  that  we  have  come  before  Congress  in  person,  and  the  nine- 
teenth annually  by  petitions.  Ever  since  the  war,  from  the  winter  of  186r)-'66,  we 
have  regularly  sent  up  petitions  asking  for  the  national  protection  of  the  citizen's 
right  to  vote  when  the  citizen  happens  to  be  a  woman.  We  are  here  again  for  the 
same  purpose.  I  do  not  propose  to  speak  now,  but  to  introduce  the  other  speakers, 
and  at  the  close  perhaps  will  state  to  the  committee  the  reasons  why  we  come  to 
Congress.  The  other  speakers  will  give  their  thought  from  the  standpoint  of  their 
respective  States.  I  will  first  introduce  to  the  committee  Mrs.  Harriet  R.  Shattuck, 
of  Boston,  Mass. 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  HARRIET  R.  SHATTUCK. 

Mrs.  Shattuck.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen  :  It  seems  as  if  it  were  almost  un- 
necessary for  us  to  come  here  at  this  meeting,  bepause  I  feel  that  all  we  have  to  say 
and  all  we  have  to  claim  is  known  to  you,  and  we  cannot  add  anything  to  what  has 
been  said  in  the  past  sixteen  years. 

But  I  should  like  to  say  one  thing,  and  that  is,  that  in  ray  work  it  has  seemed  that 
if  we  could  convince  everybody  of  the  motives  of  the  suffragists  we  would  go  far  to- 
wards removing  prejudices.  I  know  that  thosemotives  are  very  much  misunderstood. 
Persons  think  of  us  as  ambitious  women,  who  are  desirous  for  fame,  and  who  merely 
«ome  forward  to  make  speeches  and  get  before  the  public,  or  else  they  think  that  we 
are  unfortunate  beings  with  no  homes,  or  unhappy  wives,  who  are  getting  our  liveli- 
hood in  this  sort  of  way.  If  we  could  convince  every  man  who  has  a  vote  in  this  Re- 
public that  this  is  not  the  case,  I  believe  we  could  go  far  toward  removing  the  preju- 
dice against  us.  If  we  could  make  them  see  that  we  are  working  here  merely  because 
we  know  that  the  cause  is  right,  and  we  feel  that  we  must  work  for  it,  that  there  is  a 
power  outside  of  ourselves  which  impels  us  onward,  which  says  to  us  go  forward  and 
speak  to  the  people  and  try  to  bring  them  up  to  a  sense  of  their  duty  and  of  our  right. 
This  is  the  belief  that  I  have  in  regard  to  our  position  on  this  question.  It  is  a  mat- 
ter of  duty  with  us,  and  that  is  all. 

In  Massachusetts  1  represent  a  v.ery  much  larger  number  of  women  than  is  supposed. 
It  has  always  been  said  that  very  few  women  wish  to  vote.  Believing  that  this  ob- 
jection, although  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  rights  of  the  cause,  ought  to  be  met, 
the  association  of  w^hich  I  am  president  inaugurated  last  year  a  sort  of  canvass,  which 
I  believe  never  had  been  attempted  before,  whereby  we  obtained  the  proportion  of 
women  in  favor  and  opposed  to  suffrage  in  different  localities  of  our  State.  We  took 
four  localities  in  the  city  of  Boston,  two  in  smaller  cities,  and  two  in  the  country 
districts,  and  one  also  of  school  teachers  in  nine  schools  of  one  town.  Those  school 
teachers  were  unanimously  in  favor  of  suffrage,  and  in  the  nine  localities  we  found 
8 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


9 


that  the  proportion  of  women  in  favor  was  very  large  as  against  those  opjjosed.  The 
total  of  women  canvassed  was  814.  Those  in  favor  were  405  ;  those  oi)posed,  44  ;  in- 
different, 10() ;  refnsed  to  sign,  1()U ;  not  seen,  :i9.  This,  yon  see,  is  a  very  hirge  propor- 
tion in  favor.  Those  indifferent,  and  those  who  were  not  seen,  were  not  included, 
because  we  claim  that  nobody  can  yet  say  that  they  are  opposed  or  in  favor  until 
they  declare  themselves;  but  the  40r)  in  favor  against  the  44  opposed  were  as  9  to  1. 
These  canvasses  \v(!re  made  by  women  who  were  of  perfect  rcs])ectability  and  respon- 
sibility, and  they  swore  before  a  justice  of  the  peace  as  to  the  truth  of  their  state- 
ments. 

So  we  have  in  Massachusetts  this  rtiliable  canvass  of  the  number  of  women  in  favor 
as  to  those  opposed,  and  we  iind  that  it  is  9  to  1. 

These  women,  then,  are  the  class  whom  I  rejjresent  here,  and  they  are  women  who 
cannot  come  here  themselves.  Veiy  few  women  in  the  country  can  come  here  and  do 
this  work,  or  do  the  work  in  their  States,  because  they  are  in  their  hom<\s  attending 
to  their  duties,  but  none  the  less  are  they  believers  in  this  cause.  We  would  not  any 
more  than  any  man  in  the  country  ask  a,  woman  to  leave  her  home  duties  to  go  into 
this  work,  but  a  few  of  us  are  so  situated  that  we  can  do  it,  and  we  come  here  and 
we  go  to  the  State  legislatures  representing  all  the  women  of  the  country'  in  this 
work. 

What  we  ask  is,  not  that  we  may  have  the  ballot  to  obtain  any  particular  thing, 
although  we  know  that  better  things  will  come  about  from  it,  but  merely  because  it 
is  our  right,  and  as  a  matter  of  justice  w(^  claim  it  as  human  beings  and  as  citizens, 
and  as  moral,  responsible,  and  spiritual  beings,  whose  voice  ought  to  be  heard  in  the 
Government,  and  who  ought  to  take  hand  with  men  and  help  the  world  to  become 
better. 

Gentlemen,  you  have  kept  women  just  a  little  step  below  you.  It  is  only  a  short 
step.  You  shower  down  favors  upon  us  it  is  true,  still  we  renuiiu  below  you,  the  re- 
cipients of  favors  without  the  ri  :,ht  to  take  what  is  our  own.  We  ask  that  this  shall 
be  changed  ;  that  you  sliall  take  us  by  the  hand  and  lift  us  u])  to  the  same  political 
level  with  you,  where  w*^  shall  have  rights  with  you,  and  stand  e<iual  with  you  before 
the  law. 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  MAY  WRIGHT  SEWALL. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  will  now  introduce  to  the  committee  Mrs.  May  Wright  Sewall,of 
Indianapolis,  who  is  the  chairman  of  our  executive  committee. 

Mrs.  ISewall.  Gentlemen  of  the  committee  :  Gentlemen,  I  believe,  differ  somewhat 
in  their  political  ojiinions.  It  will  not  then  be  surprising,  I  supi)ose,  that  I  should 
differ  somewhat  from  my  friend  in  regard  to  the  knowledge  that  you  })robal)ly  possess 
upon  our  question.  I  do  not  l)elieve  that  you  know  all  that  we  know  about  the  wo- 
men of  this  country,  for  I  believe  that  if  yon  did  know  even  all  that  I  know,  and  my 
knowledge  is  much  more  limited  than  lhat  of  many  of  my  sisters,  long  ago  the  six- 
teenth amendment,  for  which  we  ask,  would  have  been  passed  through  your  intiu- 
ence. 

I  remember  that  when  I  was  here  two  years  ago  and  had  the  honor  of  appearing 
before  the  committee,  who  granted  us,  on  that  occasion,  what  you  are  so  kind  and 
courteous  to  grant  on  this  occasion,  an  opportunity  to  speak  before  you,  I  told  you 
that  I  re})resented  at  least  seventy  thousand  women  who  had  asked  for  the  ballot  in 
my  State,  and  I  tried  then  to  remind  the  members  of  the  committee  tliat  had  seventy 
thousand  Indiana  men  asked  for  any  measur*^  from  the  Congress  that  then  occupied 
this  Capitol,  that  measure  would  have  secured  the  most  deliberate  consideration  from 
theii  hands,  and,  in  all  probability,  its  passage  by  the  Congress.  Of  that  there  can 
be  no  doubt. 

I  do  not  wish  to  exaggerate  my  constituency,  but  during  the  last  two  years,  and 
since  I  had  the  honor  of  addressing  the  committee,  the  work  of  woman  suffrage  has 
progressed  very  rapidly  in  my  State.  The  number  of  women  who  have  found  them- 
selves in  circumstances  to  work  openly,  and  whose  spirit  has  been  drawn  into  it,  has 
largely  increased,  and  as  the  workers  have  multiplied  the  results  have  increased. 
While  we  have  not  taken  the  careful  canvass  that  has  been  so  wisely  and  judiciously 
taken  in  Massachusetts,  so  that  I  can  present  to  you  the  exact  number  of  women  who 
would  to-day  appeal  for  suffrage,  I  know  that  I  can,  far  within  the  bounds  of  possible 
truth,  state  that  while  I  represented  seventy  thousand  women  in  my  State  two  years 
ago,  who  desired  the  adoption  of  the  sixteenth  amendment,  I  represent  to-day  twice 
that  number. 

Should  any  one  come  up  from  Indiana,  pivotal  State  as  it  has  been  long  called  in 
national  elections,  saying  that  he  represented  the  wish  of  one  hundred  and  forty 
thousand  Indiana  men,  gentlemen,  would  you  scorn  his  appeal  ?  Would  y(Mi  treat  it 
liglitly  ?  Not  at  all.  You  know  that  it  would  receive  the  most  candid  consideration. 
You  know  tliat  it  would  receive  not  merely  resi)ectful  consideration,  but  immediate 
and  prompt  and  Just  action  upon  your  part. 


10 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


I  hav^e  been  told  since  I  have  reached  Washington  that  of  all  women  in  the  conntry 
Indiana  women  have  the  1<  ast  to  complain  of,  and  the  least  reason  for  coming  to  the 
United  States  Capitol  with  their  petitions  and  the  statement  of  their  needs,  because 
we  have  received  from  our  own  legislature  such  amendment  and  amelioration  of  the 
old  unjust  laws.  In  one  sense  it  is  true  that  we  are  the  recii)ientr.  In  our  own  State 
of  many  civil  rights  and  of  a  very  large  degree  of  civil  equality.  It  is  true  that  as 
respects  property  rights,  and  as  respects  industrial  rights,  the  women  of  my  own 
State  may  perhaps  be  the  envy  of  all  other  women  in  the  laud,  but,  gentlemen,  you 
have  always  told  men  that  the  greater  their  rights  and  the  more  numerous  their 
privileges  the  greater  their  responsibilities.  That  is  equally  true  of  woman,  and 
simply  because  our  property  rights  are  enlarged,  because  our  industrial  field  is  en- 
larged, because  we-  have  more  women  who  are  producers  in  the  industrial  world, 
recognized  as  such,  who  own  property  in  their  own  uame«j  and  consequently  pay 
taxes  upon  that  property,  and  thereby  have  greater  financial  and  larger  social,  as 
well  as  industrial  and  business  interests  at  stake  in  our  own  commonwealth,  and  in 
the  manner  in  which  the  administration  of  national  atfairs  is  conducted — because  of 
all  of  these  privileges  we  the  more  need  the  power  which  shall  emphasize  our  influ- 
ence upon  political  actions. 

You  know  that  industrial  and  property  rights  are  in  the  hands  of  the  law-makers 
and  the  executors  of  the  laws.  Therefore,  because  of  our  advanced  position  in  that 
matter,  we  the  more*need  the  recognition  of  our  political  equality.  I  say  the  recog- 
nition of  our  political  eqnalitj^,  because  I  believe  the  equality  already  exists.  I  be- 
lieve it  waits  simply  for  your  recognition;  that  were  the  Constitution  now  justly  con- 
strued, and  the  word  "citizens,"  as  used  in  your  Constitution,  justly  applied  it  would 
include  us,  the  women  of  this  country.  So  I  ask  for  the  recognition  of  an  equality 
that  we  already  possess. 

Further,  because  of  what  we  have  we  ask  for  more.  Because  of  the  duties  that  w^e 
are  commanded  to  do,  we  ask  lor  more.  My  friend  has  said,  and  it  is  true  in  some  re- 
spects, that  men  have  always  kept  us  just  a  little  below  them  where  they  could  shower 
upon  us  favors,  and  they  have  always  done  that  generously.  So  they  have,  but, 
gentlemen,  has  your  sex  been  more  generous  in  its  favors  to  women  than  women  have 
been  generous  toward  your  sex  in  their  favors  ?  Neither  one  can  do  without  the  other  ; 
neither  can  disi)ei  se  with  the  service  of  the  other;  neither  can  dispense  with  the  rev- 
erence of  the  other,  with  the  aid  of  the  other  in  domestic  life,  in  social  life.  The  men 
of  this  nation  are  rapidly  finding  that  they  cannot  dispense  Avith  the  service  of  wo- 
men in  business  life.  1  know  that  they  aie  al!<o  feeling  the  need  of  what  they  call  the 
moral  support  of  women  in  their  public  life,  and  in  their  political  life. 

I  always  feel  that  it  is  not  for  ^yomen  alone  that  I  appeal.  As  men  have  long  rep- 
resented me,  or  assumed  to  do  so,  and  as  the  men  of  my  own  family  always  have  done 
so  justly  and  most  chivalrously,  I  feel  that  in  my  appeal  for  political  recognition  I 
represent  them  ;  that  I  represent  my  husband  and  my  brotlier  and  the  inteiest  of  the 
sex  to  which  they  belong,  for  you,  gentlemen,  by  lifting  the  women  of  the  nation  into 
political  equality  would  simply  place  us  where  .ve  could  lift  you  where  you  never  yet 
have  stood,  u])()n  a  moral  equality  with  us.  Gentlemen,  that  is  true.  You  know  it 
as  well  as  I.  J  do  not  speak  to  you  as  individuals  ;  I  speak  to  you  as  the  representa- 
tives of  your  sex,  as  I  stand  here  the  representative  of  mine,  and  never  until  we  are 
your  equals  politically  will  the  moral  standard  for  men  be  what  it  now  is  for  women, 
and  it  is  none  too  high.  Let  it  grow  the  more  elevated  by  our  growth  in  spirituality, 
by  every  aspiration  which  we  receive  from  the  God  whence  we  draw  our  life  and 
whence  we  draw  our  impulses  of  life.  Let  our  standard  remain  where  it  is  and  be 
more  elevated.  Yours  must  come  up  to  match  it,  and  never  will  it  until  we  are  your 
equals  politically.    So  it  is  for  men,  as  well  as  for  women,  that  I  make  my  appeal. 

I  know  that  there  are  some  gentlemen  upon  this  conmiittee  who,  when  we  were 
here  two  years  ago,  had  something  to  say  about  the  rights  of  the  States  and  of  their 
disinclination  to  interfere  with  the  rights  of  the  States  »n  this  matter.  I  have  great 
sympathy  with  the  gentlemen  from  the  South,  who,  I  hope,  do  not  forget  that  they  are 
representing  the  women  of  the  Soutli  in  their  work  here  at  the  national  capital.  Al- 
ready some  Northern  States  are  making  rapid  strides  towards  the  enfranchisement  of 
their  women.  The  men  of  some  of  the  Northern  States  see  that  they  can  no  longer 
accomplish  the  purposes  politically  which  they  desire  to  accomplish  without  the  aid 
of  the  women  of  their  respective  States.  Washington  is  the  third  Territory  •that  has 
added  women  to  its  voting  force,  and  consequently  to  its  politicel  power  at  the  national 
capital,  as  well  as  its  own  capital.  Oregon  will  undoubtedly,  as  her  representative 
will  tell  you  to-day,  soon  add  its  women  to  its  voting  force.  The  men  who  believe 
that  each  State  must  be  left  to  do  this  for  itself  will  soon  find  that  the  balance  of 
power  between  the  North  and  South  is  destroyed,  unless  the  women  of  the  South  ai^ 
brought  forward  to  add  to  the  political  force  of  the  South  as  the  women  of  the  North 
are  being  brought  forward  to  add  to  the  political  force  of  the  North. 

This  should  not  be  acted  upon  as  a  partisan  measure.  We  do  not  appeal  to  you  as 
Republicans  or  as  Democrats.    We  have  among  us  Republicans  and  Democrats;  we 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


11 


have  our  party  affiliations.  We,  of  course,  were  reared  with  our  brothers  under  the 
political  belief  and  faith  of  our  fathers,  and  ])robably  as  much  influenced  by  that 
rearing  as  our  brothers  were.  We  shall  go  to  strengthen  both  the  political  parties, 
neither  one  nor  the  other  the  more,  probably.  80  that  it  is  not  as  a  partisaii  measure  ; 
it  is  as  a  just  measure,  which  is  our  due,  not  because  of  what  we  are,  gentlemen,  but 
because  of  what  you  are,  and  because  of  what  we  are  through  you,  of  what  you  shall 
be  through  us;  of  what  we,  men  and  women,  both  are  by  virtue  of  our  heritage  and 
our  one  Father,  our  one  nu>ther  eternal,  the  s))irit  created  and  i)rogressive,  that  has 
thus  far  sustained  us,  and  that  will  carry  us  and  you  forward  to  the  action  which  we 
demand  of  you  to  take,  and  to  the  results  which  we  anticipate  will  att(;nd  upon  that 
action. 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  HELEN  M.  GOUGAR. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  think  I  will  call  upon  the  other  representative  of  the  State  of  In- 
diana to  speak  now,  Mrs.  Helen  M.  Gougar,  of  La  Fayette,  Ind. 

Mrs.  Gougar.  Gentlemen,  we  are  here  on  behalf  of  the  women  citizens  of  this  Re- 
public, asking  for  political  freedom.  I  maintain  that  there  is  no  political  question 
paramount  to  that  of  woman  suffraije  before  the  people  of  America  to-day.  Political 
parties  would  fain  have  us  believe  that  tariff  is  the  great  question  of  the  hour.  Po- 
litical parties  know  better.  It  is  an  insult  to  the  intelligence  of  the  ])resent  hour  to 
say  that  when  one-half  the  citizens  of  this  Republic  are  denied  a  direct  voice  in  making 
the  laws  under  which  they  shall  live,  that  tariff,  or  that  the  civil  rights  of  the  negro, 
or  any  other  question  that  can  be  brought  up  is  equal  to  the  one  of  giving  political 
freedom  to  women.  So  I  come  to  ask  you,  as  representative  men,  making  laws  to 
govern  the  women  the  same  as  the  men  of  this  country  (and  there  is  not  a  law  that 
you  make  in  the  United  States  Congress  in  which  woman  has  not  an  equal  interest 
with  man),  to  take  the  word  "male"  out  of  the  constitutions  of  the  United  States  and 
the  several  States,  as  you  have  taken  the  word  "white"  out,  and  give  to  us  women  a 
voice  in  the  laws  uiuler  which  we  live. 

You  ask  me  why  I  am  inclined  to  be  practical  in  my  view  of  this  question.  In  the 
first  place,  speaking  from  niy  own  standpoint,  I  ask  you  to  let  me  have  a  voice  in  the 
laws  under  which  I  shall  live  because  the  older  empires  of  the  earth  arc  sending  in 
upon  our  American  shores  a  population  drawn  very  largely  from  the  asylums,  yes, 
from  the  penitentiaries,  the  jails,  and  the  poor-houses  of  the  Old  \Vorld.  They  are 
emptying  those  men  upon  our  shores,  and  within  a  few  months  they  are  intrusted 
with  the  ballot,  the  law-making  })Ower  in  this  Republic,  and  they  and  their  repre- 
sentatives are  seated  in  official  and  legislative  positions.  I,  as  an  American-born 
woman,  to-day  enter  my  protest  at  being  compelled  to  live  under  laws  made  by  this 
class  of  men  very  largely,  and  myself  being  rendered  utterly  incapable  of  the  protec- 
tion that  can  only  come  from  the  ballot.  While  I  would  not  have  you  take  this  right 
or  privilege  from  those  men' whom  we  invite  to  our  shores,  I  do  ask  yon,  in  the  face  of 
this  immense  foreign  immigration,  to  enfranchise  the  tax-paying,  intelligent,  moral, 
native-born  women  of  America. 

Miss  Anthony.  And  foreign  women  too. 

Mrs.  Gougar,  Miss  Anthony  suggests  an  amendment,  and  I  indorse  it  most  heartily, 
and  foreign  women  too,  because  if  we  let  a  foreign  man  vote  I  say  let  the  foreign 
woman  vote.    I  am  in  favor  of  universal  suffrage. 

Gentlemen,  I  ask  this  as  a  matter  of  justice  ;  I  ask  it  because  it  is  an  insult  to  the 
intelligence  of  the  present  to  draw  the  sex  line  upon  any  right  whatever.  I  know 
there  are  many  objections  urged,  and  I  am  sure  that  you  have  considered  this  (lues- 
tion  ;  but  I  only  make  the  demand  from  the  standpoint,  not  of  sex,  but  of  humanity. 

As  a  Northern  woman,  as  a  woman  from  Indiana,  I  know  that  we  have  the  intelli- 
gent, thinking,  cultured,  pure,  patriotic  men  and  women  with  us.  We  have  the 
women  who  are  engaged  in  philanthropic  enterprises.  We  have  in  our  own  State  the 
signatures  of  over  5,000  of  the  school  teachers  asking  for  woman's  ballot.  I  ask  yoa 
if  the  United  States  Government  does  not  need  the  voice  of  those  5,000  educated 
school  teachers  as  much  as  it  needs  the  voice  of  the  '240  male  criminals  who  are.  on  an 
average,  sent  out  of  the  penitentiary  of  Indiana  every  year,  who  go  to  the  ballot-box 
upon  every  question  whatever,  and  make  laws  under  which  those  school  teachers  must 
live,  and  under  which  the  mothers  of  our  State  must  keep  their  homes  and  rear  their 
children  ? 

On  behalf  of  the  mothers  of  this  country  I  demand  that  their  hands  shall  be  loosened 
befoie  the  ballot-box,  and  that  they  shall  have  the  privileg-e  of  throu  ing  the  mother 
heart  into  the  laws  that  shall  follow  their  sons  not  only  to  the  age  of  majority  that 
only  has  been  n  ade  legal,  but  is  never  recognized,  and  I  ask  you  to  let  ilie  mothers 
carry  their  intluence  in  ])rot<'cting  laws  aioiind  rhe  footsteps  of  those  boys,  even  after 
their  hair  has  turned  gray  and  they  have  seats  in  the  Kiiired  States  Congress.  I  ask 
you  to  give  them  the  j)owei-  to  throw  )»rotecting  laws  arouiul  those  boys  to  the  very 
confines  of  eternity.    This  can  be  done  in  im  iuilireet  way  :  it  cannot  lie  done  by  the 


12 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


silent  iuflueuce  ;  it  cannot  be  done  by  prayer.  While  I  do  not  underestimate  the  power 
of  prayer,  I  say  give  me  my  ballot  on  election  day  that  shall  send  pure  men,  good  men, 
intelligent  men,  statesmen,  instead  of  the  modern  politician  into  our  legislative  halls. 
I  would  rather  have  that  ballot  on  election  day  than  the  prayers  of  all  the  disfran- 
chised women  in  the  universe. 

So  I  ask  you  to  loosen  our  hands.    I  ask  you  to  let  us  join  with  you  in  developing ' 
this  science  of  human  government.    What  is  politics  after  all  but  the  science  of 
government  ?    We  are  interested  in  these  questions,  and  we  are  investigating  them 
already.   We  have  our  opinions.    Recently  an  able  man  has  said  that  we  have  been 
grandiy  developed  physically  and  mentally,  but  as  -a  nation  we  are. a  political  infant.  ; 
So  we  are,  gentlemen  ;  we  are  to-day  in  America  politically  simply  an  infant.   Why  is  ' 
it  ?    It  is  because  we  have  not  recognized  God's  family  ])lan  in  government — man  and  i 
woman  together.    He  created  the  male  and  female,  and*gaA'e  them  dominion  togetheV.  ' 
We  have  dominion  in  every  other  interest  in  society,  and  why  shall  we  not  stand 
shoulder  to  shoulder  and  have  dominion  in  the  science  in  government,  in  making  the  1 
laws  under  which  we  shall  live  ?  | 

We  are  taxed  to  support  this  Government — this  immense  Capitol  building  is  built 
largely  from  the  industries  of  the  tax-paying  women  of  this  country — and  yet  we  are 
denied  the  slightest  voice  in  distributing  our  taxes.  Our  foreparents  did  not  object 
to  taxation,  but  they  did  object  to  taxation  without  representation,  and  we,  as  think- 
ing, industrious,  active  American  women,  object  to  taxation  without  rei)resentation. 
We  are  willing  to  contribute  our  share  to  the  support  of  this  Government,  as  we  al- 
ways have  done ;  but  we  have  a  right  to  ask  for  our  little  yes  and  no  in  the  form  of 
the  ballot  so  that  we  shall  have  a  direct  influence  in  distributing  the  taxes. 

Gentlemen,  I  am  amenable  to  the  gallows  and  the  penitentiary,  and  it  is  no  more 
than  right  that  I  shall  have  a  voice  in  framing  the  laws  under  which  I  shall  be  re- 
warded or  punished.  Am  I  asking  too  much  of  you  as  representative  men  of  this 
great  Government  when  I  ask  you  to  let  me  have  a  voice  in  making  the  laws  under 
which  I  shall  be  rewarded  or  punished  ?  It  is  written  in  the  law  of  every  State  in 
this  Union  that  a  person  in  the  courts  shall  have  a  jury  of  his  peers,  yet  so  long  as 
the  word  "male"  stands  as  it  does  in  the  Constitutions  of  the  United  States  and  the 
States  no  woman  in  any  State  of  this  Union  can  have  a  jury  of  her  peers.  I  protest 
in  the  name  of  justice  against  going  into  the  court-room  and  being  compelled  to  run 
the  gantlet  of  the  gutter  and  of  the  saloon — yes,  even  of  the  police  court  and  of  the 
jail — as  we  are  compelled  to  do  to  select  a  male  jury  to  try  the  interests  of  women, 
whether  relating  to  life,  property,  or  reputation.  So  long  as  the  word.  "  male"'  is  in 
our  constitutions  just  so  long  we  cannot  havQ  a  jury  of  our  peers  in  any  State  in  the 
Union. 

I  ask  that  the  women  shall  have  the  right  of  the  ballot  that  they  may  go  into  our 
legislative  halls  and. there  provide  for  the  prevention  rather  than  the  cure  of  crime. 
I  ask  you  on  behalf  of  the  twelve  hundred  children  under  twelve  yeai's  of  age,  who 
are  in  the  poor-houses  of  Indiana,  of  the  sixteen  hundred  in  the  poor-houses  of  Illi- 
nois, and  on  that  average  in  every  State  in  the  Union,  that  you  shall  take  the  word 
"  male  "  out  of  the  constitutions  and  allow  the  women  of  this  country  to  sit  in  legis- 
lative halls  and  provide  homes  for  and  look  after  the  little  waifs  of  society.  There 
are  hundreds  of  moral  questions  to-day  requiring  the  assistance  of  the  moral  element 
of  womanhood  to  help  make  the  laws  under  which  we  shall  live. 

Gentlemen,  the  political  i)arty  that  lives  in  the  future  must  tight  the  moral  battles 
of  humanity.  Th<^  day  of  blood  is  passed  ;  the  day  of  brain  and  heart  is  upon  us  ;  and 
I  ask  you  to  let  the  moral  constituency  that  resides  in  woman's  nature  be  represented. 
Let  me  say  right  here  that  I  do  not  believe  that  there  is  morality  in  sex,  but  the 
social  customs  have  been  such  that  woman  has  been  held  to  a  higher  standard.  May 
the  day  hasten  when  the  social  custom  shall  hold  man  to  as  high  a  moral  standard  as 
it  to-day  holds  woman. 

This  is  the  condition  of  things.  The  political  party  that  presumes  to  fight  the 
moral  battles  of  the  future  must  have  the  women  in  its  ranks.  We  are  non-partisan, 
as  has  been  well  said  by  my  friend  from  Indiana  (Mrs.  Sewall).  We  come  Demo- 
crats, Republicans,  and  Greenbackers,  and  I  expect  if  there  were  a  half  dozen  other 
political  parties  some  of  us  would  belong  to  thetn.  We  ask  this  beneficent  action 
upon  your  part  because  we  believe  that  the  intelligence  and  the  justice  of  the  hour  is 
demanding  it.  We  do  not  want  a  political  party  action.  We  want  you  to  keep  this 
question  out  of  the  canvass.  We  ask  you  in  the  name  of  justice  and  humanity  alone, 
and  not  on  the  part  of  party. 

I  hold  in  my  hand  a  petition  sent  from  one  district  in  the  State  of  Illinois  with  the 
request  that  1  bear  it  to  you.  Out  of  three  hundred  electors  the  names  of  two  hun- 
dred stand  in  this  petition  that  I  shall  leave  in  your  hands.  In  this  list  stand  not  the 
wife-whippers,  not  the  drunkards,  *not  the  dissolute,  but  every  minister  in  that  town, 
every  editor  in  that  town,  every  professional  man  in  that  town,  every  banker,  and 
every  prominent  business  man  in  that  town  of  three  hundred  electors.    I  believe  that 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


13 


petitions  conUl  be  rolled  up  iu  this  way  in  every  town  in  the  Northern  aixl  in  many 
of  the  Southern  States.    I  leave  this  petition  with  you  for  your  consideration. 

llpdn  no  question  whatever  has  such  a  large  number  of  ])etitions  been  sent  as  upon 
this  demand  for  woman  sutfrage.  You  have  the  petitions  in  your  liands,  and  I  ask  you 
in  the  name  of  justice  and  humanity  not  to  let  this  Congress  adjourn  without  action. 

You  ask  us  if  we  are  im])aticnt.  Yes;  we  are  imjiatient.  Some  of  us  may  die,  and 
I  -want  our  grand  old  standard-bearer,  Susan  B.  Anthony,  whose  name  will  go  (lowii 
to  history  beside  that  of  George  Washington,  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  Wendell  Phil- 
lips— I  want  that  woman  to  go  to  Heaven  a  free  angel  from  this  Republic.  The  ])ower 
lies  in  your  hands  to  make  us  all  free.  May  the  blessing  of  God  be  upon  the  hearts  of 
every  one  of  you,  gentlemen  ;  may  the  scales  of  prejudice  fall  from  your  eyes,  and  may 
you,  representing  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  have  the  grand  honor  of  telegraph- 
ing to  us,  to  the  millions  of  waiting  women  from  one  end  of  this  country  to  the  other, 
that  the  sixteenth  amendment  has  been  submitted  to  the  ratification  of  the  several 
legislatures  of  our  States  striking  the  word  "male  "  out  of  the  constitutions ;  and  that 
this  shall  be,  as  we  promise  it  to  be,  a  Government  of  the  people,  for  the  people,  and 
by  the  people. 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  ABIGAIL  SCOTT  DUNIWAY. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  now,  gentlemen  of  the  committee,  introduce  to  you  Mrs.  Abigail 
Scott  Duniway,  from  the  extreme  Northwest ;  and  before  she  speaks.  I  wish  to  say 
that  she  has  been  the  one  canvasser  iu  the  great  State  of  Oregon  and  Wnshingtoii 
Territory,  and  that  it  is  to  Mrs.  Duniway  that'the  women  of  Washington  Territory 
are  more  indebted  than  to  all  other  intluences  for  their  enfranchisement. 

Mrs.  Duniway.  Gentlemen  of  the  committee,  do  you  think  it  possible  that  an  agi- 
tation like  this  cau  go  on  and  on  forever  without  a  victory  f  Do  you  not  see  that  the 
golden  moment  has  come  lor  this  grand  committee  to  achieve  immortality  upon  the 
grandest  idea  that  has  ever  stirred  the  heart-beats  of  American  citizens,  and  will  you 
not  in  the  magnanimity  of  noble  purposes  rise  to  meet  the  situation  and  accede  to  our 
demand,  which  iu  your  hearts  you  must  know  is  just  f 

I  do  not  come  before  you,  gentlemen,  with  the  expectation  to  instruct  you  in  regard 
to  the  laws  of  our  country.  The  women  around  us  are  law-abiding  women.  They 
are  the  motliere,  many  of  them,  of  true  and  noble  men,  the  wives,  many  of  them,  of 
grand,  free  husbands,  who  are  listening,  watching,  w^aiting  eagerly  for  successful  tid- 
ings of  this  great  experiment. 

There  never  was  a  grander  theory  of  government  than  that  of 'these  United  States. 
Never  were  grander  principles  enunciated  upon  any  platform,  never  so  grand  before 
and  never  can  be  grander  again,  than  the  declaration  that  "all  me'\,"  including  of 
course  all  women,  since  women  are  amenable  to  the  laws,  "are  created  equal;  that 
they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights  *  *  *  fljat 
to  secure  these  rights  governments  are  instituted  among  men,  deriving  their  just 
powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed." 

Gentlemen,  are  we  allowed  the  opportunity  of  consent  ?  These  women,  who  are  here 
from  Maine  to  Oregon,  from  the  Straits  of  Fuca  to  the  reefs  of  Florida,  who.  iu  their 
representative  capacity,  have  come  up  here  so  often,  augmented  in  their  numbers  year 
by  year,  looking  with  eyes  of  hope  and  hearts  of  faith,  but  oftentimes  with  hopes  de- 
ferred upon  the  final  solution  of  this  great  problem,  which  it  is  so  much  iu  yourhauds 
to  hasten  in  its  st)hition — these  women  are  in  earnest.  My  State  is  far  away  beyond 
The  confines  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  away  over  beside  the  singing  Pacific  sea,  but  the 
8j)irit  of  liberty  is  among  us  there,  and  the  public  heart  has  been  stirred.  The  hearts 
of  our  men  have  l)een  moved  to  listen  to  our  deuuinds,  and  in  AVashington  Territory, 
as  one  speaker  has  informed  you,  women  to-day  are  endowed  with  full  and  free  enfran- 
chisement, and  the  rejoicing  throughout  that  Territory  is  universal. 

In  Oregon  men  have  also  listene(l  to  our  demand,  and  the  legislature  has  in  two  suc- 
cessive sessions  agreed  upon  a  proposition  to  amend  our  State  constitution,  a  proposi- 
tion which  will  be  submitted  for  ratification  to  our  voters  at  the  coming  June  election. 
It  is  simply  a  proposition  declaring  that  the  right  of  suffrage  shall  not  hereafter  be 
prohibited  in  the  State  of  Oregon  on  account  of  sex.  Your  action  in  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States  will  greatly  determine  the  action  of  the  voters  of  Oregon  on  our,  or 
rather  on  their,  election  day,  for  we  stand  before  the  public  in  the  anomaly  of  peti- 
tioners upon  a  great  <]uestion  in  which  we  in  its  final  decision  are  allowed  no  voice, 
and  we  can  only  stand  with  expectant  hearts  and  almost  bated  breath  awaiting  the 
action  of  men  who  are  to  make  this  decision. 

We  have  great  hope  for  our  victory,  because  the  men  of  the  broad  free  West  are 
grand,  and  chivalrous,  and  free.  They  have  gone  across  the  mighty  continent  with 
free  steps;  they  have  raised  the  standard  of  a  new  Pacific  empire  ;  they  have  imbibed 
the  spirit  of  liberty  with  their  very  breath,  and  they  have  listened  to  us  far  in  ad- 
vance of  many  of  the  men  of  the  older  States  who  have  not  had  their  opportunity 
among  the  grand  free  wilds  of  nature  for  expansion. 


14 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


So  all  of  our  leaders  are  with  us  to-day.  You  may  go  to  either  member  of  the  Sen- 
ate of  the  United  States  from  Oregon,  and  while  I  cannot  speak  so  positively  for  the 
senior  member,  as  he  came  over  here  some  years  ago  before  the  public  were  so  well 
educated  as  now,  I  can  and  do  proudly  vouch  for  the  late  Senator-el f^ct  Dolph,  who  now 
has  a  seat  upon  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  who  is,  heart  and  soul  and  hand  and  purse,  in 
sympathy  with  this  great  movement  for  the  enfranchisement  of  the  women  of  Oregon. 
I  would  also  be  unjust  to  our  worthy  Representative  in  the  lower  House,  Hon.  M.  C. 
George,  did  I  not  proudly  speak  his  name  in  this  great  connection.  Men  of  this  class 
are  with  us,  and  without  regard  to  party  affiliations  we  know  that  they  are  upon  our 
side.  Our  governor,  our  associate  supreme  judge  for  the  district  of  the  Pacific,  all  of 
these  men,  are  leading  in  the  grand  free  way  that  characterizes  the  men  of  the  West 
in  assisting  in  this  work.  But  we  have — alas,  that  I  should  be  compelled  to  say  it — a 
great  many  men  who  pay  no  heed  whatever  to  this  question.  Men  will  be  entitled  to 
a  voice  in  this  decision  who  are  not,  like  members  of  Congress,  the  picked  men  of  the 
nation  or  the  State,  bat  men,  many  of  whom  cannot  read,  who  will  have  an  oppor- 
tunity to  decide  this  question  as  far  as  theii-  ballots  can  go.  These  are  they  to  whom 
the  enlightened,  educated  motherhood  of  the  State  of  Oregon  must  look  largely  for 
the  decision. 

This  brings  me  to  the  grand  point  of  our  coming  to  Congress.  Some  of  you  say  to 
us,  "Why  not  leave  this  matter  for  settlement  in  the  different  States?"  When  we 
leave  it  for  settlement  in  the  different  States  we  leave  it  just  as  I  have  told  you,  be- 
cause of  the  constitutional  provisions  of  our  organic  law  we  cannot  do  otherwise  ;  but 
if  the  question  were  to  be  settled  by  the  legislature  of  Oregon  alone  it  would  be  settled 
now  ;  and  I,  as  a  representative  of  tliat  State  only,  would  have  no  need  of  coming 
here ;  it  would  be  settled  just  as  it  has  been  settled  in  Washington  Territory ;  but 
when  we  come  here  to  Congress  it  is  the  great  nation  asking  you  to  take  such  legisla- 
tive action  in  submitting  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  as 
shall  recognize  the  equality  of  these  women  who  are  here ;  these  women  who  have 
come  here  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  whose  constituents  are  looking  on  while  we 
are  here  before  you.  As  we  reflect  that  our  feeblest  words  uttered  before  this  com- 
mittee will  go  to  the  confines  of  thio  nation  and  be  cabled  across  the  great  Atlantic 
and  around  the  globe,  we  realize  that  more  and  more  prominently  our  cause  is  grow- 
ing into  public  favor,  and  the  time  is  just  upon  us  when  some  decision  must  be  made. 

Gentlemen  of  the  committee,  will  you  not  recognize  the  importance  of  the  move- 
ment? Who  among  you  will  be  our  standard-bearer?  Who  among  you  will  achieve 
immortality  by  standing  up  in  these  halls  in  which  we  are  forbidden  to  speak,  and  in 
the  magnanimity  of' your  own  free  wiJls  and  noble  hearts  champion  the  woman's 
cause  and  make  us  before  the  law,  as  we  of  right  ought  now  to  be,  free  and  independ- 
ent? 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  CAROLINE  GILKEY  ROGERS. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  now  call  upon  Mrs.  Caroline  Gilkey  Rogers,  of  Lansingburg,  N. 
Y.,  to  address  the  committee 

Mrs.  Rogers.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen  of  the  committee,  in  our  efforts  to  se- 
cure the  right  of  citizenship  we  appeal  only  to  your  sense  of  justice  and  love  of  fair 
dealing. 

We  ask  for  the  ballot  because  it  is  the  symbol  of  equality.  There  is  no  other  rec- 
ognized  symbol  of  equality  in  this  country.  We  ask  for  the  ballot  that  we  may  be 
equal  to  man  before  the  law.  We  urge  a  twofold  right — our  right  to  the  Republic, 
the  Republic's  right  to  us.  We  believe  the  interests  of  the  country  are  identical  with 
the  interests  of  all  its  citizens,  including  women,  and  that  the  Government  can  no 
longer  afford  to  shut  women  out  from  the  afl'airs  of  the  State  and  nation,  and  wise 
men  are  beginning  to  know  that  they  are  needed  in  the  Government ;  that  they  are 
needed  where  our  laws  are  made  as  well  as  where  they  are  violated. 

Many  admit  the  justice  of  our  claim,  but  will  say.  Is  it  safe?  Is  it  expedient?  It 
is  always  safe  to  do  right ;  it  is  always  expedient  to  be  just.  Justice  can  never  bring 
evil  in  its  train. 

The  question  is  asked  how  and  what  would  the  women  do  in  the  State"  and  nation? 
We  do  not  pledge  ourselves  to  anything.  I  claim  that  we  cannot  have  a  better  gov- 
ernment than  that  of  the  people.  The  present  Government  is  of  only  a  part  of  the 
people.  We  have  not  yet  entered  upon  the  system  of  higher  arbitration,  because  the 
Government  is  of  man  only.  If  we  had  been  marching  along  with  you  all  this  time 
I  trust  we  should  have  reached  a  higher  plane  of  civilization. 

We  believe  that  all  the  virtue  of  the  world  can  take  care  of  all  the  evil,  and  all  the 
intelligence  can  take  care  of  all  the  ignorance.  Let  us  have  all  the  virtue  confront 
all  the  vice. 

There  is  no  need  to  do  battle  in  this  matter.  In  all  kindness  and  gentleness  we 
urge  our  claims.  There  is  no  need  to  declare  war  upon  men,  for  the  best  of  men  in 
this  country  are  with  us  heart  and  soul. 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


15 


It  is  a  common  remark  that  unless  some  now  element  is  infnsed  into  onr  political 
life  our  nation  is  doomed  to  destruction.  What  more  fitting  element  than  the  nohle 
type  of  American  womanhood,  who  have  taught  our  Presidents,  Senators,  and  Con- 
gressmen the  rudiments  of  all  they  know. 

Think  of  all  the  foreigners  and  all  our  own  nativ^e-born  ignorant  men  who  cannot 
write  their  own  names  or  read  the  Declaration  of  Inde])endeiiee  making  laws  for  such 
women  as  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  and  SnsaTi  B.  Anthony.  Think  of  jurors  drawn  from 
these  ranks  to  watch  and  try  young  giils  for  crimes  often  committed  against  them 
when  the  male  criminal  goes  free.  Think  of  a  single  one  of  thes<'  votes  on  election 
day  outweighing  all  the  women  in  the  country.  Is  it  not  humiliating  for  me  to  sit, 
apolitical  cipher,  and  see  the  colored  man  in  my  employ,  to  whom  I  have  taught  the 
al])habet,  go  out  on  election  day  and  say  by  his  vote  what  shall  be  done  with  my  tax 
moiM-y.    How  would  you  like  it  ? 

When  we  think  of  the  wives  trami)led  on  by  husbands  whom  the  law  has  taught 
theiu  TO  regard  as  inferior  beings,  and  of  the  mothers  whose  children  aie  torn  from 
their  arms  by  the  direct  behest  of  the  law  at  the  bidding  of  a  dead  or  Irving  father, 
when  we  think  of  these  things,  our  hearts  ache  Avith  pity  and  indignation. 

If  mothers  could  only  realize  how  the  laws  which  they  have  no  voice  in  making 
and  no  power  to  change  affects  them  at  every  point,  how  they  enter  every  door, 
whether  palace  or  hovel,  touch,  limit,  and  bind,  every  article  and  inmate  from  the 
smallest  child  uj),  no  woman,  however  shrinking  and  delicate,  can  escape  it,  they 
wouhl  get  beyond  the  meaningless  cry,  "I  have  all  the  rights  I  want."  Do  these 
women  know  that  in  most  States  of  the  Union  the  shameful  fact  that  no  woman  has 
any  legal  right  to  her  own  child,  except  it  is  born  out  of  wedlock!  In  these  States 
there  is  not  a  line  of  positive  law  to  protect  the  mother  :  the  father  is  the  legal  ])ro- 
tector  and  guardian  of  the  children. 

Under  the  laws  of  most  of  the  States  to-day  a  husband  may  by  his  last  will  bequeath 
his  t  hild  aw^ay  from  its  mother,  so  that  she  might,  if  the  giiardian  chose,  never  see  it 
again. 

The  husband  may  have  been  a  very  bad  man,  and  in  a  moment  of  anger  made  the 
will.  The  guardian  he  has  appointed  may  turn  out  a  malicious  man,  and  take  pleas- 
ure' in  tormenting  the  mother,  or  he  may  bring  up  the  children  in  a  way  that  the 
mother  thinks  ruinous  to  them,  and  she  has  no  redress  in  law.  Why  do  not  all  the 
fortunate  mothers  in  the  land  cry  out  against  such  a  law  ?  Why  do  not  all  women 
say,  "  Inasmuch  as  the  law  has  done  this  wrong  unto  the  least  of  these  my  sisters  it 
has  done  it  unto  me"  It  is  true  that  men  are  almost  always  better  than  their  laws, 
but  while  a  bad  law  remains  on  the  statute  books  it  gives  to  any  unscrupulous  man 
a  right  to  be  as  bad  as  the  law. 

It  is  often  said  to  us  when  all  the  women  ask  for  the  ballot  it  will  be  granted.  Did 
all  the  married  women  petition  the  legislatures  of  their  States  to  secure  to  thera  the 
right  to  hold  in  their  own  name  the  property  that  belonged  to  them?  To  secure  to 
the  poor  forsaken  wife  the  right  to  her  earnings  ? 

All  the  women  did  not  ask  for  these  rights,  but  all  accepted  them  with  joy  and  glad- 
ness when  they  were  obtained,  and  so  it  will  be  with  the  franchise.  But  woman's 
rights  to  self-government  does  not  depend  upon  the  numbers  that  demand  it,  but  upon 
precisely  the  same  principles  that  man  claims  it  for  himself. 

Where  did  man  get  the  authority  that  he  now  claims  to  govern  one-half  of  humanity, 
from  what  power  the  right  to  place  woman,  his  helpmeet  in  life,  in  an  inferior  position  f 
Came  it  from  nature  ?  Nature  made  woman  his  superior  when  she  made  her  his 
mother— his  equal  when  she  fitted  her  to  hold  the  sacred  position  of  wife.  Did 
women  meet  in  council  and  voluntarily  give  up  all  their  claim  to  be  their  own  law- 
makers ? 

The  power  of  the  strong  over  the  weak  makes  man  the  master.  Yes,  then,  and  then 
only,  does  he  gain  the  authority. 

It  is  all  very  well  to  say  "  Convert  the  women."  While  we  most  heartily  wish 
they  could  all  feel  as  we  do,  yet  when  it  comes  to  the  decision  of  this  great  question 
they  are  mere  cipher>s,  for  if  this  question  is  settled  by  the  States  it  will  be  left  to 
the  voters,  not  to  the  women  to  decide.  Or  if  suffrage  comes  to  women  through  a 
sixteenth  amendment  to  the  national  Constitution,  it  will  be  decided  by  legislatures 
elected  by  men.  In  neither  case  will  women  have  an  opportunity  of  passing  upon 
the  question.  So  reason  tells  us  we  must  devote  our  best  efforts  to  converting  those 
to  whom  we  must  look  "for  the  removal  of  our  disabilities,*which  now  prevent  our  ex- 
ercising the  right  of  suffrage. 

The  arguments  in  favor  of  the  enfranchisement  of  women  are  truths  strong  and  un- 
answerable, and  as  old  as  the  free  institutions  of  our  Government.    The  principle  of 

taxation  without  representation  is  tyranny,"  applies  to  women  as  well  as  men,  and 
is  as  true  to-day  as  it  was  a  hundred  years  ago. 

Our  demand  for  the  ballot  is  the  great  onward  step  of  the  century,  and  not,  as  some 
claim,  the  idiosyncracies  of  a  few  unbalanced  minds. 

Every  argument  that  has  been  urged  against  this  question  of  woman's  suffrage  has 


16 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


beeu  urged  against  every  reform.  Yet  the  reforms  have  fought  their  way  onward  and 
became  a  part  of  the  glorious  history  of  humanity. 

So  it  will  be  with  suffrage.  "  You  can  stop  the  crowing  of  the  cock,  but  you  can- 
not stop  the  dawn  of  the  morning."  And  now,  gentlemen,  you  are  responsible,  not 
for  the  laws  yon  find  on  the  statute  books,  but  for  those  you  leave  liiere. 


REMARKS  BY  MRS.  MARY  SEYMOUR  HOWELL. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  now  introduce  to  the  committee  Mrs.  Mary  Seymour  Howell,  the 
president  of  the  Albany,  N.  Y.,  State  society. 

Mrs.  Howell.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen  of  the  coraraiitee  :  Miss  Anthony  gives 
me  five  minutes.  I  shall  have  to  talk  very  rapidly.  I  ask  you  for  the  ballot  because 
of  the  very  first  principle  that  is  often  repeated  to  you,  that  "  taxation  without  rep- 
resentation is  tyranny."  I  come  from  the  city  of  Albany,  where  many  of  my  sisters 
are  taxed  for  millions  of  dollars.  There  are  three  or  four  women  in  the  city  of  Albany 
who  are  worth  their  millions,  and  yet  they  have  no  voice  in  the  laws  that  govern  and 
control  them.  One  of  our  great  State  senators  has  said  that  you  cannot  argue  five 
minutes  against  woman  suffrage  without  repudiating  every  princiole  that  this  great 
Republic  is  founded  upon. 

I  ask  you  also  for  the  ballot  for  the  large  class  of  women  who  are  not  taxed.  They 
need  it  more  than  the  women  who  are  taxed.  I  have  found  in  every  work  that  I  have 
conducted  that  because  I  am  a  woman  I  am  not  paid  for  that  work  as  a  man  is  paid 
for  similar  work. 

You  have  heard,  and  perhaps  some  of  you  are  thinking — I  hope  not— that  women 
should  be  at  home.  I  wish  to  say  to  you  that  there  are  millions  of  women  in  the 
United  States  who  have  no  homes.  There  are  millions  of  women  who  are  trying  to 
earn  their  bread  and  hold  their  purity  sacred.  For  that  class  of  women  I  appeal  to 
you.  In  the  city  of  Albany  there  are  hundreds  of  women  in  our  factories  making  the 
shirts  that  you  can  buy  for  $1  50  and  $'2,  and  all  those  women  are  paid  for  making  the 
shirts  is  4  cents  apiece.  There  are  in  the  State  of  New  York  18,000  teachers.  When 
I  was  a  teacher  and  taught  with  gentleuien  in  our  academies,  I  received  about  one- 
fourth  of  the  pay  becanse  I  hapi)ened  to  be  a  woman.  I  consider  it  an  insult  that 
forever  burns  in  my  soul,  that  I  am  to  be  handed  a  mere  pittance  in  comparison  with 
what  man  receives  for  same  quality  of  work.  When  I  was  sent  out  by  our  superin- 
tendent of  public  instruction  to  hold  conventions  of  teachers,  as  I  have  often  done  in 
our  State  of  New  York,  and  when  I  did  one-third  more  work  than  the  men  teachers  so 
sent  out,  but  because  I  was  a  woman  and  had  not  the  ballot  I  was  only  paid  about 
half  as  much  as  the  man  ;  and  saying  that  once  to  our  superintendent  of  public  in- 
struction in  Albany,  he  said,  "  Mrs.  Howell,  just  as  soon  as  you  get  the  ballo*^  and  have 
a  political  influence  in  the  work  you  will  have  the  same  pay  as  a  man." 

We  ask  for  the  ballot  for  that  great  army  of  fallen  women  who  walk  our  streets  and 
who  break  up  our  homes  and  ruin  our  husbands  and  our  dear  boys.  We  ask  it  for  those 
women.  The  ballot  will  lift  them  up.  Hundreds  and  thousands  of  women  give  up 
their  purity  for  tke  sake  of  s  arving  children  and  families.  There  is  many  a  woman 
who  goes  to  a  life  of  degradation  and  pollution  shedding  burning  tears  over  her  4-cent 
shirts. 

We  ask  for  the  ballot  for  the  good  of  the  race.  Huxley  says,  "admitting  for  the  sake 
of  argument  that  woman  is  the  weaker,  mentally  and  physically,  for  that  very  reason 
she  should  have  the  ballot  and  should  have  every  help  that  the  world  can  give  her." 
When  you  debar  from  your  councils  and  legislative  halls  the  purity,  the  spirituality, 
and  the  love  of  woman  then  those  legislative  halls  and  those  councils  are  apt  to  become 
coarse  and  brutal.  God  gave  us  to  you  to  help  you  in  this  little  journey  to  a  better 
land,  and  by  our  love  and  our  intellect  to  help  to  make  our  country  pure  and  noble, 
and  if  you  would  have  statesmen  you  must  have  stateswomen  to  bear  them. 

I  ask  you  also  for  the  ballot  that  I  may  decide  what  I  am.  I  stand  before  you,  but 
I  do  not  know  to-day  whether  I  am  legally  a  "  person  "  according  to  the  law.  It  has 
been  decided  in  some  States  that  we  are  not  "  persons."  In  the  State  of  New  York,  in 
one  village,  it  was  decided  that  women  are  not  inhabitants.  So  I  should  like  to  know 
whether  I  am  a  person,  whether  I  am  an  inhabitant,  and  above  all  I  ask  you  for  the 
ballot  that  I  may  become  a  citizen  of  this  great  Republic. 

Gentlemen,  you  see  before  you  this  great  convention  of  women  from  the  Atlantic 
•slopes  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  from  the  North  to  the  South.  We  are  in  dead  earnest.  A 
reform  never  goes  backward.  This  is  a  question  that  is  before  the  American  nation. 
Will  you  do  your  duty  and  give  us  our  liberty,  or  will  you  leave  it  for  braver  hearts 
to  do  what  must  be  done  ?  For,  like  our  forefathers,  we  will  ask  until  we  have 
gained  it. 

Ever  the  world  goes  round  and  round ; 

Ever  the  truth  comes  uppermost ;  and  ever  is  justice  done. 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


17 


REMARKS  BY  MRS.  LILLIE  DEVEREUX  BLAKE. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  nowliave  the  pleasant  of  introducing  to  th(;  coniuiittee  Mrs.  Lillie 
Devert'iix  Bhiko,  of  New  York.  New  York  is  a  y.reat  State,  and  therefore  it  has  three 
representatives  here  to-day. 

Mrs.  Blakk.  Mr.  Chairman  and  j^entlenien  of  tlie  committee :  A  recent  writer  in  an 
English  magazine,  in  speaking  of  tlie  great  advantage  which  to-day  flows  to  the  labor- 
ing classes  of  that  nation  from  having  received  the  right  of  suffrage,  made  the  state- 
ment that  disfranchised  classes  are  oppressed,  not  because  there  is  any  desire  what- 
ever to  do  injustice  to  them,  but  because  they  are  forgotten.  We  have  year  after  year 
and  session  after  session  of  our  legislatures  and  of  our  Congresses  proved  the  correct- 
ness of  this  statement.  While  we  ha  ve  nothing  to  complain  of  in  the  courtesy  wliich 
we  receive  in  private  life;  still  when  we  see  nuissesof  men  assemble  together  for  politi- 
cal action,  whether  it  be  of  the  nation  or  of  the  State,  we  lind  that  the  women  are 
totaly  forotteu. 

hi  the  limited  time  that  is  mine  I  cannot  go  into  any  lengthy  exposition  upon  this 
point.  I  will  simply  call  your  attention  to  the  total  forgetfulness  of  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  to  the  debt  owed  to  the  women  of  this  nation  during  the  war.  You 
have  passed  a  pension  bill  upon  which  there  has  been  much  conunent  throughout  the 
nation,  and  yet,  when  an  old  army  nurse  applies  for  a  pension,  a  woman  who  is  broken 
down  by  her  devotion  to  the  nation  in  hospitals  and  upon  the  battle-field,  she  is  met 
at  the  door  of  the  Pension  Bureau  by  this  statement,  "  the  Government  has  made  no 
appropriation  for  the  services  of  women  in  the  war."  One  of  these  women  is  an  old 
nurse  whom  some  of  you  may  remember,  Mother  Bickerdyke,  who  went  out  onto  many 
a  battle-field,  when  she  was  in  the  prime  of  life,  twenty  years  ago,  and  at  the  risk  of 
her  life  lifted  men  who  were  wounded,  in  her  arms,  and  carried  them  to  a  place  of 
safety.  She  is  an  old  woman  now,  and  where  is  she  !  What  reward  lias  the  nation 
bestowed  to  her  faithful  services  ?  The  nation  has  a  pension  for  every  man  who  has 
served  this  nation,  even  down  to  the  boy  recruit  who  was  out  but  three  months  ; 
but  Mother  Bickerdyke,  though  her  health  has  never  been  good  since  her  service 
then,  is  earning  her  living  at  the  wash-tub,  a  monument  to  the  ingratitude  of  a  Repub- 
lic as  great  as  was  that  when  Belisarius  begged  in  the  streets  of  Rome. 

I  bring  up  this  illustration  alone  out  of  innumerable  others  that  are  possible,  to  try 
to  impress  upon  your  minds  that  we  are  forgotten.  It  is  not  from  any  unkindness  on 
your  part.  Who  would  think  for  one  moment,  looking  upon  the  kindly  faces  of  this 
committee,  that  any  man  on  it  would  do  an  injustice  to  women,  especially  if  she  were 
old  and  feeble  ?  But  because  we  have  no  right  to  vote,  as  I  said,  our  interests  ai;e  over- 
looked and  forgotten. 

It  is  often  said  that  we  have  too  many  voters  ;  that  the  aggregate  of  vice  and  igno- 
rance among  us  should  not  be  increased  by  giving  women  the  right  of  suffrage.  I 
wish  to  remind  you  of  the  fact  that  in  the  enormous  immigration  that  pours  to  our 
shores  every  year,  numbering  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of  half  a  million,  there 
come  twice  as  many  men  as  women.  The  figures  for  the  last  year  were  two  hundred 
and  twenty-three  thousand  men  and  one  hundred  and  thirteen  thousand  women. 
What  does  this  mean  ?  It  means  a  steady  influx  of  this  foreign  element;  it  means  a 
constant  preponderance  of  the  masculine  over  the  feminine ;  and  it  means  also,  of 
course,  a  preponderance  of  the  voting  power  of  the  foreigner  as  compared  to  the 
native  born.  To  those  who  fear  that  our  American  institutions  are  threatened  by 
this  gigantic  inroad  of  foreigners  I  commend  the  reflection  that  the  best  safeguard 
against  any  such  preponderance  of  foreign  nations  or  of  foreign  influence  is  to  put 
the  ballot  in  the  hands  of  the  American  born  women,  and  of  all  other  women  alSo,  so 
that  if  the  foreign  born  man  overbalances  us  in  numbers  we  shall  be  always  in  a  pre- 
ponderance on  the  side  of  the  liberty  which  is  secured  by  our  institutions. 

It  is  because,  as  many  of  my  predecessors  have  said,  of  the  diflerent  elements  repre- 
sented by  the  two  sexes,  that  we  are  asking  for  this  liberty.  When  I  was  recently  in 
the  capitol  of  my  own  State  of  New  Y'ork,  I  was  reminded  there  of  the  dificreuce  of 
temperament  between  the  sexes  by  seeing  how  children  act  when  coming  to  the  doors 
of  the  capitol  wlkich  have  been  constructed  so  that  they  are  very  hard  to  open.  Whether 
that  is  because  they  want  to  keep  us  women  out,  or  not  I  am  not  able  to  say  ;  but  for 
some  reason  the  doors  are  so  constructed  that  it  is  nearly  impossible  to  open  them. 
I  saw  a  number  of  little  girls  coming  in  through  those  doors — every  child  held  the 
door  for  those  who  were  to  follow.  A  number  of  little  boys  followed  just  after,  and 
every  boy  rushed  through  and  let  the  door  shut  in  the  face  of  the  one  who  was  coming 
behind  him.  That  is  a  good  illustration  of  thedifiereut  qualitiesof  the  sexes.  Those 
boys  were  not  unkind,  they  simply  represented  that  onward  push  which  is  one  of  the 
grandest  characteristics  of  your  sex;  and  the  little  girls,  on  the  other  hand,  repre- 
sented that  gentleness  and  tlioughtfuluess  of  others  which  is  eminently  a  character- 
istic of  women. 


S.  liep.  70 


18 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


This  woman  element  is  needed  in  every  branch  of  the  Government.  Look  at  the 
wholesale  destrnction  of  the  forests  throughout  our  nation,  which  has  gone  on  until 
it  brings  direct  destruction  to  the  land  on  the  lines  of  the  great  rivers  of  the  West, 
and  threatens  us  even  in  New  York,  with  destroying  at  once  the  beauty  and  the  use- 
fulness of  oiir  i'ar-famed  Hudson.  If  women  were  in  the  Government  do  yon  not  think 
they  would  protect  the  economic  interests  of  the  nation  ?  They  are  the  born  and 
trained  economists  of  the  world,  and  when  you  call  them  to  your  assistance  you  w^iil 
find  an  element  that  has  not  heretofore  been  felt  with  the  weight  which  it  deserves. 

As  we  walk  through  the  Capitol  we  are  struck  w'ith  the  significance  of  the  symbolism 
on  every  side  ;  we  view  the  adornments  in  the  beautiful  room,  and  we  find  here  every- 
where emblematically  woman's  figure.  Here  is  woman  representing  even  war,  and 
there  are  woukmi  representing  grace  and  loveliness  and  the  fullness  of  the  harvest ; 
and,  above  all,  they  are  extending  their  protecting  arms  "ttver  the  little  children. 
Gentlemen,  I  leave  you  under  this  symbolism,  hoping  that  you  will  see  in  it  the  type 
of  a  coming  day  when  we  shall  have  women  and  men  united  together  in  the  national 
councils  in  this  great  building. 


REMARKS  BY  DR.  CLEMENCE  S.  LOZIER. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  meant  to  have  said,  as  I  introduced  Mrs.  Blake,  that  sitting  on 
the  sofa,  is  Dr.  Clemence  S.  Lozier,  w^ho  declines  to  speak,  bnt  I  want  her  to  stand  up, 
because  she  represents  New  York  City. 

Dr.  Lozier.  1  thank  you.  I  am  very  happy  to  be  here,  but  I  am  not  a  fluent 
speaker.  I  teel  in  my  heart  that  I  know  Avhat  justice  means;  that  I  know  what  mercy 
means,  and  in  all  my  rounds  of  duty  in  my  profession  I  am  happy  to  extend  not  only 
food  bnt  shelter  to  many  poor  ones.  The  need  of  the  ballot  for  working  girls  and 
those  who  pay  no  taxes  is  not  understood.  The  Saviour  said,  seeing  the  poor  widow 
cast  her  two  mites,  w^hicli  make  a  farthing,  into  the  public  treasury,  "This  poor  widow 
hath  cast  more  in  thau  all  they  which  have  cast  into  the  treasury."  I  see  this  among 
the  poor  working  girls  of  the  city  of  New  York,  sick,  in  a  little  garret  bedroom,  per- 
haps, and  although  needing  medical  care  and  needing  food,  they  will  say  to  me, 
"  above  all  things  else,  if  I  could  only  pay  the  rent."  The  rent  of  their  little  rooms 
goes  into  the  coffers  of  their  laudlords  and  pays  taxes.  The  poor  women  of  the  city 
of  New  York  aiid  everywhere  are  the  grandest  upholders  of  this  Government.  I  be- 
lieve they  pay  indirectly  more  taxes  than  the  monopoly  kings  of  our  country.  It  is 
for  them  that  I  want  the  ballot., 


REMARKS  BY  MRS.  ELIZABETH  BOYNTON  HARBERT. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  now  introduce  to  the  committee  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Boynton  Harbert, 
of  Illinois,  and  before  Mrs.  Harbert  speaks  I  wish  to  say  that  for  the  last  six  years 
she  has  edited  a  department  of  the  Chicago  Inter-Ocean  called  the  "  Women's  King- 
dom." 

Mrs.  Harbert.  Mr.  Chairman  and  honorable  gentlemen  of  the  committee,  after  the 
eloquent  rhetoric  to  which  yon  have  listened  I  merely  come  in  these  five  minutes  with 
a  plain  statement  of  facts.  Some  friends  have  -said,  "  Here  is  the  same  company  of 
women  that  year  after  year  besiege  you  with  their  petitions."  We  are  here  to-day  in 
a  representative  capacity.  From  the  great  State  of  Illinois  I  come,  representing  200,000 
men  and  women  of  that  State  who  have  recorded  their  written  petitions  for  woman's 
ballot,  90,000  of  these  being  citizens  under  the  law,  male  voters  ;  those  90,000  having 
signed  petitions  for  the  right  of  women  to  vote  on  the  temperance  question  ;  90,000 
women  also  signed  those  petitions ;  50,000  men  and  women  signed  the  petitions  for 
the  school  vote,  and  nearly  60,000  more  have  signed  petitions  that  the  right  of  suffrage 
might  be  accorded  to  woman. 

This  growth  of  public  sentiment  has  been  occasioned  by  the  needs  of  the  children  and 
the  working  women  of  that  great  State.  I  come  here  to  ask  yoi^  to  make  a  niche  in 
the  statesmanship  and  legislation  of  the  nation  for  the  domestic  interests  of  the  peo- 
ple. You  recognize  that  the  masciiline  thought  is  more  often  turned  to  'the  material 
and  political  interests  of  the  nation.  I  claim  that  the  mother  thought,  the  woman 
element  needed,  is  to  supplement  the  concurrent  statesmanship  of  American  men  on 
political  and  industrial  affairs  with  the  domestic  legislation  of  the  nation. 

There  are  good  men  and  Avomen  w'ho  believe  that  women  should  use  their  influence 
merely  through  their  social  sphere.  I  believe  both  of  the  great  parties  are  repre- 
sented by  us.  You  remember  that  a  few  weeks  ago  when  tjiere  came  across  the  coun- 
try the  news  of  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  as  regards  the  negro  race  the  poli- 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


19 


ticians  spranj;  to  the  platform,  aud  our  editors  hastened  to  their  sanctums,  to  pro- 
chiim  to  the  people  that  that  did  not  interfere  with  the  civil  riolits  of  the  ney:ro ; 
that  only  their  social  ri<;hts  were  affected,  and  that  the  civil  ri<;lits  of  man,  those 
rights  worth  dying  for,  were  not  affected.  Gentlemen,  we  who  are  trying  to  help  the 
men  in  our  municipal  governments,  who  are  trying  to  save  tin;  children  from  our 
poor-houses,  begin  to  realize  that  whatever  is  good  and  essential  for  tiie  liberty  of 
the  black  man  isgt)od  for  the  white  woman  and  for  all  womiui.  We  are  hert;  to  claim 
that  wiiatever  liberty  has  done  for  you  it  should  be  allowed  to  do  for  us.  Take  a 
single  glance  through  the  past;  recognize  the  position  of  American  mauhood  before 
the  world  to-day,  and  whatever  liberty  has  done  for  you,  liberty  will  surely  do  for 
the  motbers  of  the  race. 

MKS.  SARAH  E.  WALE. 

Miss  Anthony.  Gentlemen  of  the  committee,  here  is  another  woman  1  wish  to  show 
yon.  Sarah  E.  Wall,  of  Worcester,  Mass.,  who,  for  the  last  twenty-live  years,  has  re- 
sisted Ihe  tax-gatherer  when  he  came  around.  I  want  you  to  look  at  her.  Slu;  looks 
very  harmless,  but  she  will  not  pay  a  dollar  of  tax.  She  says  when  the  Comhion wealth 
of  Massachusetts  will  give  her  the  right  of  representation  she  will  pay  her  taxes.  I 
do  not  know  exactly  how^  it  is  now,  but  the  assessor  has  left  her  name  otf  the  tax-list, 
and  passed  her  by  rather  than  have  a  laAvsuit  with  her. 


REMARKS  BY  MISS  SUSAN  B.  ANTHONY. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  wish  I  could  state  the  avocations  and  professions  of  the  various 
women  who  have  spoken  in  our  convention  during  the  last  three  days.  I  do  not 
wish  to  speak  disparagingly  in  regard  to  the  men  in  Coiigiess,  but  I  doubt  if  a  man 
on  the  floor  of  either  house  could  have  uuide  a  better  speech  tlian  some  of  those 
which  have  been  made  by  women  during  this  conveutioii.  Twenty-six  States  and 
Territories  are  represented  with  live  women,  traveling  all  the  w^ay  from  Kansas,  Ar- 
kansas, Oregon,  and  Washington  Territory.  It  does  seem  to  me  that  after  all  these 
years  of  coming  up  to  this  Capitol  an  impression  should  be  made  upon  the  minds  of 
legislators  that  we  are  never  to  be  silenced  until  we-  gain  the  demand.  We  have 
never  had  in  the  whole  thirty  years  of  our  agitation  so  many  States  represented  in 
any  convention  as  we  have  had  this  year. 

This  fact  shows  the  growth  of  public  sentiment.  Mrs.  Duniway  is  here,  all  the  way 
from  Oregon,  and  you  say,  when  Mrs.  Duniwaj^  is  doing  so  well  up  there,  and  is  so 
hopeful  of  carrying  the  State  of  Oregon,  why  do  not  you  all  rest  satisfied  with  that 
plan  of  gaining  the  suffrage?  My  answer  is  that  I  do  not  wish  to  seei;he  women 
of  the  thirty-eight  States  of  this  Union  compelled  to  leave  their  homes  and  canvass 
each  State,  school  district  by  school  district.  It  is  asking  too  much  of  a  moneyless 
class  of  people,  disfranchised  by  the  constitution  of  every  State  in  the  Union.  The 
joint  earnings  of  the  marriage  copartnership  in  all  the  States  belong  legally  to  the 
hushand.  If  the  wife  goes  outside  the  home  to  work,  the  law  in  most  of  the  States  per- 
mits her  to  ow^n  and  control  the  money  thus  earned.  We  have  not  a  single  State  in 
the  Union  where  the  w  ife's  earnings  inside  the  marriage  copartnership  are  owned  by 
her.  Therefore,  to  ask  the  vast  majority  of  women  who  are  thus  situated,  without 
an  independent  dollar  of  their  own',  to  make  a  canvass  of  the  States  is  asking  too 
much. 

Mrs.  GouGAR.  Why  did  they  not  ask  the  negro  to  do  that  ? 

Miss  Anthony.  Of  course  the  negro  was  not  asked  to  go  begging  the  white  man 
from  school  district  to  school  district  to  get  his  ballot.  If  it  was  known  that  we 
could  be  driven  to  the  ballot-box  like  a  llock  of  sheep,  and  all  vote  for  one  party, 
there  would  be  a  bid  made  for  us;  but  that  is  not  done,  because  we  cannot  promise 
you  any  such  thing;  "because  we  stand  before  you  and  honestly  tell  you  that  the 
women  of  this  nation  are  educated  equally  with  tbe  men,  and  that  they,  too,  have 
political  opinions.  There  is  not  a  w^oman  on  our  platform,  there  is  scarcely  a  woman 
in  this  city  of  Washington,  whether  the  wife  of  a  Senator  or  a  Congressman — I  do  not 
believe  you  can  find  a  score  of  women  in  the  whole  nation — who  have  not  o])inionsou 
the  pending  Presidential  election.  We  all  have  opinions;  we  all  have  parties.  Some 
of  us  like  one  partj'  and  one  candidate  and  some  another. 

Therefore  we  cannot  promise  you  that  women  will  vote  as  a  unit  when  they  are  en- 
franchised. Suppose  the  Democrats  shall  put  a  woman-sutfrage  plank  in  their  plat- 
form in  their  Presidential  convention,  and  uomiuate  an  open  and  avowed  friend  of 
woman  suffrage  to  stand  upon  that  platform  ;  we  cannot  pledge  you  that  all  the 
women  of  this  nation  will  work  for  the  success  of  that  party,  nor  can  I  pledge  you 


20 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


that  they  will  all  vote  for  the  Republican  party  if  it  should  be  the  one  to  take  the 
lead  in  their  enfranchisement.  Our  women  will  not  toe  a  mark  anywhere  ;  they  will 
think  and  act  for  themselv^es.  and  when  they  are  enfranchised  they  will  divide  upon 
all  political  questions,  as  do  intelligent,  educated  men. 

•I  have  tried  the  experiment  of  canvassing  four  States  i)rior  to  Oregon,  and  in  each 
State  with  the  best  canvass  that  it  was  possible  for  us  to  make  we  obtained  a  vote  of 
one-third.  One  man  out  of  every  three  men  voted  for  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
women  of  their  households,  while  two  voted  against  it.  But  we  are  proud  to  say  that 
our  splendid  minority  is  always  composed  of  the  very  best  men  of  the  State,  and  I 
think  Senator J?*almer  will  agree  with  me  that  the  forty  thousand  men  of  Michigan 
who  voted  for  the  enfranchisement  of  the  women  of  his  State  were  really  the  picked 
men  in  intelligence,  in  culture,  in  morals,  in  standing,  and  in  every  direction. 

It  is  too  much  to  say  that  the  majority  of  the  voters  in  any  State  are  superior,  edu- 
cated, and  capable,  or  that  they  investigate  every  question  thoroughly  and  cast  the 
ballot  thereon  intelligently.  We  all  know  that  the  majority  of  the  voters  of  any 
State  are  not  of  that  stamp.  The  vast  masses  of  the  people,  the  laboring  classes,  have 
all  they  can  do  in  their  struggle  to  get  food  and  shelter  for  their  families.  They  have 
very  little  time  or  opportunity  to  study  great  questions  of  constitutional  law. 

Because  of  this  impossibility  for  women  to  canvass  the  States  over  and  over  to  edu- 
cate the  rank  and  file  of  the  voters  we  come  to  you  to  ask  you  to  make  it  possible  for 
the  legislatures  of  the  thirty-eight  States  to  settle  the  question,  where  we  shall  have 
a  few  representative  men  assembled  before  whom  we  can  make  our  appeals  and  argu- 
ments. 

This  method  of  settling  the  question  by  the  legislatures  is  just  as  much  in  the  Hue 
of  States'  rights  as  is  that  of  the  popular  vote.  The  one  question  before  you  is,  will 
you  insist  that  a  majority  of  the  individual  voters  of  every  State  must  be  converted 
before  its  women  shall  have  the  right  to  vote,  or  will  you  allow  the  matter  to  be  set- 
tled by  the  representative  men  in  the  legislatures  of  the  several  States?  You  need 
not  fear  that  we  shall  get  suffrage  too  quickly  if  Congress  shall  submit  the  proposi- 
tion, for  even  then  we  shall  have  a  hard  time  in  going  from  legislature  to  legislature 
to  secure  the  two-thirds  votes  of  three-fourths  of  the  States,  necessary  to  ratify  the 
amendment.  It  may  take  twenty  years  after  Congress  has  taken  the  initiative  step  to 
make  action  by  the  State  legislatures  jjossible. 

I  pray  you,  gentlemen,  that  you  will  make  your  report  to  the  Senate  speedilj*.  I 
know  you  are  ready  to  make  a  favorable  one.  Some  of  our  sjjeakers  may  not  have 
known  this  as  well  as  I.  I  ask  you  to  make  a  report  and  to  bring  it  to  a  discussion 
and  a  vote  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate.  ' 

You  ask  me  if  we  want  to  press  this  question  to  a  vote,  provided  there  is  nut  a  ma- 
jority to  carry  it.  I  say  yes,  because  we  want  the  reflex  influence  of  the  discussion 
and  of  the  opinions  of  Senators  to  go  back  into  the  States  to  help  us  to  educate  the 
people  ot  the  States. 

Senator  Lapham.  It  would  require  a  two-thirds  vote  in  both  the  House  and  the 
Senate  to  submit  the  amendment  to  the  State  legislatures  for  ratification. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  know  that  it  requires  a  two-thirds  vote  of  both  Houses.  But  still, 
I  repeat,  even  if  you  cannot  get  the  two-thirds  vote,  we  ask  you  to  report  the  bill 
and  bring  it  to  a  discussion  and  a  vote  at  the  earliest  day  possible.  We  feel  that  this 
question  should  be  brought  before  Congress  at  every  session.  We  ask  this  little 
attention  from  Congressmen  whose  salaries  are  paid  from  the  taxes;  women  do  their 
share  for  the  support  of  this  great  Government.  We  think  we  are  entitled  to 
two  or  three  days  of  each  session  of  Congress  in  both  the  Senate  and  House.  There- 
fore I  ask  of  you  to  help  us  to  a  discussion  in  the  Senate  this  session.  There  is  no 
reason  why  the  Senate,  composed  of  seventy-six  of  the  most  intelligent  and  liberty- 
loving  men  of  the  nation,  shall  not  pass  the  resolution  by  a  two-thirds  vote.  I 
really  believe  it  will  do  so  if  the  friends  on  this  committee  and  on  the  floor  of  the 
Senate  will  champion  the  measure  as  earnestly  as  if  it  M^ere  to  benefit  themselves  in- 
stead of  their  mothers  and  sisters. 

Gentlemen,  I  thank  you  for  this  hearing  granted,  and  I  hope  the  telegraph  wires 
will  soon  tell  us  that  your  report  is  presented,  and  that  a  discussion  is  inaugurated 
on  the  floor  of  the  Senate. 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


21 


[Senate  Mis.  Doc.  No.  74.  Fortj'-seventh  Cousress,  first  ses-siou.  | 

ARGUMENTS  OF  THE  WOMAX-SVFFRAG E  DELEGATES  BEFORE  THE  COM- 
MITTEE Oy  THE  JUDICIARY  OF  THE  UNUrED  STATES  SENATE,  JAN- 
UARY 23,  1880. 

March  30,  1882.— Reported  from  the  Conuiiittee  ou  tlie  Judiciary,  ordered  to  be  ])riiited  foi'  the  use  of 
tlie  counnittee,  and  recominitted. 

The  CoMMiiTEE  on  the  Judiciary, 

United  States  Senate, 

FYiday,  January  23,  1880. 

The  conuiiittee  assembled  at  half-past  10  o'clock  a.  m. 

Present,  Mr.  Thurman,  cliairnjau,  Mr.  McDonald,  Mr.  Bayard,  Mr.  Davis  of  Illinois, 
Mr.  Edmunds. 

Also  Mrs.  Zerelda  G.  Wallace,  of  Indiana;  Mrs.  Elizabeth  L.  Saxon,  of  Louisiana; 
Mrs.  Mary  A.  Stewart,  of  Delaware;  Mrs.  Lucinda  B.  Chandler,  of  Pennsylvania; 
Mrs.  Julia  Smith  Parker,  of  Gla.stonbury,  Conn.  ;  Mrs.  Nancy  R.  Allen,  of  Iowa;  Miss 
Susan  B.  Anthony,  of  New  York;  Mrs.  Sara  A.  Spencer,  of  the  city  of  Wa.shington, 
and  others,  delegates  to  the  twelfth  Washington  convention  of  the  National  Woman- 
Sutlrage  Association,  held  .January  2\  and  1880. 

The  Chairman.  Several  members  of  the  committee  are  unable  to  be  here.  Mr. 
Lamar  is  detained  at  his  home  in  Mississippi  by  sickness;  Mr.  Carpenter  is  confined 
to  his  room  by  sickness;  Mr.  Conkling  has  been  unwell ;  I  do  not  know  how  he  is  this 
morning;  and  Mr.  Garland  is  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Territories,  which  has 
a  meeting  this  morning  that  he  could  not  omit  to  attend.  I  do  not  think  we  aro 
likely  to  have  any  more  members  of  the  committee  than  are  here  now,  and  we  will 
hear  you,  ladies. 


REMARKS  BY  MRS.  ZERELDA  G.  WALLACE,  OF  INDIANA. 

Mrs.  Wallace.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen  of  the  committee:  It  is  scarcely 
necessary  to  recite  that  there  is  not  an  effect  without  a  cause.  Therefore  it  would  be 
well  for  the  statesmen  of  this  nation  to  ask  themselves  the  question.  What  has  brought 
the  women  from  all  parts  of  this  nation  to  the  capital  at  this  tiiue;  the  wives  and 
mothers,  and  sisters  ;  the  home-loving,  law-abiding  women  ?  W^hat  has  been  the 
strong  motive  that  has  taken  us  away  from  the  quiet  and  comfort  of  our  own  homes 
and  brought  us  before  you  to-day  ?  As  an  answer  i)artly  to  that  question,  I  will  read 
an  extract  from  a  speech  made  by  one  of  Indiana's  statesmen,  and  probably  if  I  tell 
you  his  name  his  sentiments,  ma.y  have  some  weight  with  you.  He  fouiul  out  by 
experience  and  gave  us  the  benefit  of  his  experience,  and  it  is  what  we  are  rapidly 
learning: 

"  Y'^ou  can  go  to  meetings ;  you  can  vote  resolutions;  you  can  attend  great  dem- 
onstrations on  the  street ;  but,  after  all,  the  only  occasion  where  the  American  citi- 
zen expresses  his  acts,  his  opinion,  and  his  power  is  at  the  ballot-box;  and  that  little 
ballot  that  he  drops  in  there  is  the  written  sentiment  of  the  times,  and  it  is  the  power 
that  he  has  as  a  citizen  of  this  great  Republic." 

That  is  the  reason  why  w^e  are  here  ;  that  is  the  reason  why  we  want  to  vote.  We 
are  no  seditious  women,  clamoring  for  any  peculiar  rights,  but  we  are  patient  w^omen. 
It  is  not  the  woman  question  that  brings  us  before  you  to-day ;  it  is  the  human  ques- 
tion that  underlies  this  movement  among  the  women  of  this  nation  ;  it  is  for  God, 
and  home,  and  native  land.  W«  love  and  ai)preciate  our  country  ;  we  value  the  in- 
stitutions of  our  country.  We  realize  that  we  owe  great  obligations  to  the  men  of 
this  nation  for  what  they  have  done.  We  realize  that  to  their  strength  we  owe  the 
subjugation  of  all  tJie  material  forces  of  the  universe  which  give  us  comfort  and  lux- 
ury in  our  homes.  W^e  realize  that  to  their  brains  we  owe  the  machinery  that  gives 
us  leisureJ'or  intellectual  culture  aiul  achievement.  We  realize  that  it  is  to  their 
education  we  owe  the  opening  of  our  colleges  and  the  establishment  of  our  public 
schools,  which  give  us  these  great  and  glorious  inivileges. 

This  movement  is  the  legitimate  result  of  this  development,  of  this  enlightenment, 
and  of  the  suffering  that  woman  has  undergone  in  the  ages  past.  We  find  ourselves 
hedged  in  at  every  etlbrt  we  make  as  mothers  for  the  amelioration  of  society,  as  phi- 
lanthropists, as  Christians. 

A  short  time  ago  I  \\ent  before  the  legislature  of  Indiana  with  a*petitiou  signed 
by '25, dOO  women,  the  best  women  in  the  State.  I  a])|)eal  to  ihe  memory  of  Judge 
McDonald  to  substantiate  the  truth  of  what  I  say.  .Judge  McDonald  knows  that  I 
am  a  home-loving,  law -pbidiug,  tax-paying  woman  of  Indiana,  and  have  been  lor  fifty 


22 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


years.  When  1  went  before  our  legislature  and  found  that  one  hundred  of  the  rilest 
men  in  our  State,  merely  by  the  possession  of  the  ballot,  had  more  intluence  with  the 
law-makers  of  our  land  than  the  wives  and  mothers  of  the  nation,  it  was  a  revelation 
that  was  perfectly  startliiio-. 

You  Uiust  admit  <hat  in  popular  government  the  ballot  is  the  moat  potent  means  of 
all  moral  and  social  reforms.  As  members  of  society,  as  those  who  are  deeply  in- 
terested in  the  pioniotiou  of  good  morals,  of  virtue,  and  of  the  proper  protection  of 
men  from  the  con>equ('uces  of  their  own  vices,  and  of  the  protection  of  women,  too, 
we  are  dee})ly  interested  in  all  the  social  problems  with  which  you  have  grappled  so 
long  unsuccessfully.  We  do  not  intend  to  depreciate  .your  efforts,  but  you  have  at- 
tempted to  do  an  impossible  thing.  You  have  attempted  to  represent  the  whole  by 
one-half  ;  and  we  come  to  you  to-day  for  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that  humanity  is 
not  a  unit ;  that  it  is  a  unity ;  and  because  we  are  one-half-^that  go  to  make  up  that 
grand  unity  we  come  before  you  to-daj^  and  ask  you  to  recognize  our  rights  as  citizens 
of  this  Republic. 

We  know  that  many  of  us  lay  ourselves  liable  to  contumely  and  ridicule.  We  have 
to  meet  sneers;  but  we  are  determined  that  in  the  defense  of  light  we  will  ignore 
everything  but  what  we  feel  to  be  our  duty. 

We  do  not  come  here  as  agitators,  or  aimless,  dissatisfied,  unhappy  women  by  any 
means;  but  we  come  as  human  beings,  recognizing  our  responsibility  to  God  for  the 
advantages  that  have  come  to  us  in  the  development  of  the  ages.  We  wish  to  dis- 
charge that  responsibility  faithfully,  effectually,  and  conscientiously,  and  we  cannot 
do  It  under  our  form  of  government,  hedged  in  as  we  are  by  the  lack  of  a  power  which 
is  such  a  mighty  engine  in  our  form  of  government  for  every  means  of  work. 

I  say  to  you,  then,  we  come  as  one-half  of  the  great  whole.  There  is  an  essential 
difference  in  the  sexes.  Mr.  Farkraan  labored  very  hard  to  prove  what  no  one  would 
deny,  that  there  is  an  essential  difference  in  the  sexes,  and  it  is  because  of  that  very 
dift'erentiation,  the  union  of  which  in  home,  the  recognition  of  which  in  society,  brings 
the  greatest  happiness,  the  recognition  of  which  in  the  church  brings  the  greatest 
power  and  influence  for  good,  and  the  recognition  of  which  in  the  Government  would  . 
enable  us  finally,  as  near  as  it  is  possible  for  humanity,  to  perfect  our  form  of  govern- 
ment. Probably  we  can  never  have  a  perfect  form  of  government,  but  the  nearer  we 
approximate  to  the  divine  the  nearer  will  we  attain  to  perfection  ;  and  the  divine 
government  recognizes  neither  caste,  class,  sex,  nor  nationality.  The  nearer  we  ap- 
proach to  that  divine  ideal  the  nearer  we  will  come  to  realizing  our  hopes  of  finally 
securing  at  least  the  most  perfect  form  of  human  government  that  it  is  posssible  for 
us  to  secure. 

I  do  not  wish  to  trespass  upon  your  time,  but  I  have  felt  that  this  movement  is  not 
understood  by  a  great  majority  of  people.  They  think  that  we  are  unhappj^,  that  we 
are  dissatisfied,  that  we  are  restive.  That  is  not  the  case.  When  we  look  over  the 
statistics  of  our  State  and  find  that  6U  per  cent,  of  all  the  crime  is  the  result  of  drunk- 
enness ;  when  we  find  that  60  per  cent,  of  the  orphan  children  that  fill  our  pauper 
homes  are  the  children  of  drunken  parents  ;  when  we  find  that  after  a  certain  age  the 
daughters  of  those  fathers  who  were  made  paupers  and  drunkards  by  the  approbation 
and  sanction  and  under  the  seal  of  the  Government,  go  to  supply  our  houses  of  pros- 
titution, and  when  we  find  that  the  sons  of  these  fathers  go  to  fill  up  our  jails  and  our 
penitentiaries,  and  that  the  sober,  law-abiding  men,  the  pains-taking,  economical,  and 
many  of  them  widowed  wives  of  this  nation  have  to  pay  taxes  and  bear  the  expenses 
incurred  by  such  legislation,  do  you  wonder,  gentlemen,  that  Ave  at  least  want  to  try 
our  hand  and  see  what  we  can  do  ?  We  may  not  be  able  to  bring  about  that  Utopian 
form  of  government  which  we  all  desire,  but  we  can  at  least  make  an  effort.  Under 
our  form  of  government  the  ballot  is  our  right;  it  is  just  and  proper.  When  you  de- 
bate about  the  expediency  of  any  matter  you  have  no  right  to  say  that  it  is  inexpedi- 
ent to  do  right.  Do  right  and  leave  the  result  to  G(|d.  You  will  have  to  decide  be- 
tween one  of  two  things  :  either  you  have  no  claim  under  our  form  of  Constitution  for 
the  privileges  wliich  you  enjoy,  or  you  will  have  to  say  that  we  are  neither  citizens 
nor  persons. 

Realizing  this  fact,  and  the  deep  interest  that  we  take  in  the  successful  issue  of  this 
experinu^ut  that  humanity  is  making  for  self-government,  and  realizing  the  fact  that 
the  ballot  never  can  be  given  to  us  under  more  favorable  circumstances,  and  believing 
that  here  on  this  continent  is  to  be  wrought  out  the  great  problem  of  man's  ability  to 
govern  himself— and  when  I  say  man  I  use  the  word  in  the  generic  sense— that  human- 
ity here  is  to  work  out  the  great  problems  of  selt-government  and  developnuiut,  and 
recognizing,  as  I  said  a  feT\'  miuutes  ago,  that  we  are  one-half  of  the  great  whole,  we 
feel  that  we  ought  to  be  heard  when  we  come  before  you  and  make  the  plea  that  we 
make  to-day. 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


23 


REMARKS  BY  MRS.  JULIA  SMITH  PARKER,  OF  GLASTONBURY,  CONN. 

Mrs.  Pauker.  GeuthMiien  :  Von  may  be  sm  pi  iscd,  and  not  so  nmcli  snrpriscd  as  I 
am,  to  see  a  woman  of  over  fonr-score  years  of  a<;e  appear  before  yon  at  this  time. 
She  came  into  the  world  and  reached  years  of  matnrity  and  discretion  before  any  per- 
son in  this  room  was  born.  She  now  comes  before  you  to  i)lead  that  she  can  vote  and 
have  all  the  ])rivileiies  that  men  have.  She  has  sntfored  so  mncli  individually  tliat 
she  thought  when  she  was  xouuii-  she  had  no  riiiht  to  speak  before  the  men  ;  but  still 
she  had  courage  to  <?et  an  education  ecpial  to  that  of  any  man  at  the  college,  and  she 
had  to  sutler  a  great  deal  on  that  account.  She  went  to  New  Haven  to  sthool,  and  it 
was  noised  that  she  had  studied  the  languages.  It  was  such  an  astonishing  thing  for 
girls  at  that  time  to  have  the  advantages  of  education  that  I  had  absolutely  to  goto 
cotillion  i)arties  to  let  people  see  that  I  had  connuon  sense.  [Laughter.] 

She  has  >utlered;  she  had  to  i)ay  nmney.  She  has  had  to  i)ay  $2i)0  a  year  in  taxes 
without  the  least  privilege  of  knowiug  what  bt-comes  of  it.  She  does  not  know  but 
that  it  goes  to  support  grog-shops.  She  knows  nothing  about  it.  She  has  had  to  suf- 
fer her  cows  to  be  sold  at  the  sign-i)ost  six  times.  She  suttered  her  meadow  land  to 
be  sold,  worth  S*2,000,  for  a  tax  of  less  than  !S50.  If  she  could  vote  as  the  men  do  .she 
would  not  have  sutfered  this  insult ;  and  so  much  would  not  have  been  said  against 
her  as  has  been  said  if  men  did  not  have  the  whole  power.  I  was  told  that  they  had 
the  power  to  take  anything  that  I  owned  if  I  would  not  exert  myself  to  pay  the 
money,  I  felt  that  I  ought  to  have  some  little  voice  in  determining  what  should  be 
done  with  what  I  jniid.  I  felt  that  I  ought  to  own  my  own  property;  that  it  ought 
not  to  be  in  these  men's  hands  ;  and  I  now  come  to  plead  that  I  Tuay  liave  the  same 
privileges  before  the  law  that  men  have.  I  have  seen  what  a  difference  there  is,  when 
I  have  had  my  cows  sold,  by  having  a  voter  to  take  my  part. 

I  have  come  from  an  obscure  town  (I  cannot  say  that  it  is  obscure  exactly)  on  the 
banks  of  the  Connecticut,  where  I  was  born.  I  was  brought  up  on  a  farm.  I  never 
had  an  idea  that  it  could  be  possible  that  I  should  ever  come  all  the  way  to  Washing- 
ton to  speak  before  tho.se  who  had  not  come  into  existence  when  I  was  born.  Now, 
I  plead  that  there  may  be  a  sixteenth  amendment,  and  that  women  may  be  allowed 
the  i^rivilege  of  owning  their  own  property.  That  is  what  I  have  taken  pains  to  ac- 
complish. I  have  sutfered  so  much  myself  that  I  felt  it  might  have  some  etfect  to 
plead  before  this  honorable  committee.    I  thank  you,  gentlemen,  for  hearing  me  so 


REMARKS  BY  MRS.  ELIZABETH  L.  SAXON,  OF  LOUISIANA. 

Mrs.  Saxox.  Gentlemen:  I  almost  feel  that  after  Mrs.  Wallace's  plea  there  is  scarcely 
a  necessity  for  me  to  say  anything  ;  she  echoed  my  own  feelings  so  entirely.  I  come 
from  the  extreme  South,  she  from  the  West.  In  this  delegation,  and  in  tlie  conven- 
tion which  has  just  been  held  in  this  city,  women  have  come  together  who  never  met 
before.  People  have  asked  me  why  I  came.  I  care  nothing  for  sutt'rage  so  far  as  to 
stand  beside  men,  or  rush  to  the  polls,  or  take  any  privilege  outside  of  my  home, 
only,  as  Mrs.  Wallace  says,  for  humanity.  Years  ago,  when  a  little  child,  I  lost  my 
mother,  and  I  was  brought  up  by  a  man.  If  I  have  not  a  man's  brain  I  had  at  least 
a  man's  instruction.  Ho  taught  me  that  to  work  in  the  cause  of  reform  for  women 
was  just  as  great  as  to  work  in  the  cause  of  reform  for  men.  But  in  every  etibrt  I 
made  in  the  cause  of  reform  I  was  combated  in  one  direction  or  another.  I  never 
took  part  with  the  sutfragists,  I  never  realized  the  importance  of  their  cause,  until 
we  were  beaten  back  on  every  side  in  the  work  of  reform.  If  we  attempted  to  put 
■women  in  charge  of  pri.sons,  believing  that  wherever  woman  sins  and  suffers  women 
should  be  there  to  teach,  help,  and  guide,  every  place  was  in  the  hands  of  men.  If 
we  made  an  etfort  to  get  women  on  the  school  boards  we  were  cojnbatedand  could  do 
nothing.  Every  place  seemed  to  be  changed,  when  there  were  good  men  in  tho.se 
places,  by  changes  of  politics,  and  the  mothers  of  the  land,  having  had  to  i)rostrate 
themselves  as  beggars,  if  not  in  fact,  really  in  sentiment  and  feeling,  have  become  at 
last  almost  desi)erate. 

In  the  State  of  Texas  I  had  a  niece  living  who.se  father  was  an  inmate  of  a  lunatic 
asylum.  She  exerted  as  wide  an  influence  in  the  State  of  Texas  as  any  woman  there. 
I  allude4;o  Miss  Mollis  Moore,  who  was  the  ward  of  Mr,  Cushing.  I  give  this  illustra- 
tion as  a  reason  why  Southern  women  are  taking  part  in  thisnu^vemeut.  Mr,  Wallace 
had  charge  of  that  lunatic  asylum  for  years.  He  was  a  good,  honorable,  ablo  mau. 
Everj-  one  was  endeared  to  him  ;  every  one  appreciated  him  ;  the  Stjite  appreciated 
him  as  superintendent  of  this  a.sylum. 

When  a  political  change  was  nuide  and  Governor  Robinson  came  in.  Dr.  Wallace 
was  ousted  for  ])olitical  purposes.  It  almost  broke  the  hearts  of  some  of  the  women 
who  had  sons,  <iaughters.  or  husbands  there.    They  determiiu'd  at  once  to  try  to  .seek 


24 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


some  redi  e.s8aiid  ha  ve  him  reinstated.  It  was  inii)OSHible.  He  was  out,  and  what  could 
we  do?  I  do  not  know  that  we  could  reach  a  case  like  that;  but  such  cases  have 
stirred  the  women  of  the  whole  laud,  for  the  reason  that  when  they  try  to  do  good,  or 
want  to  help  in  the  cause  of  humanity,  they  are  comhated  so  bitterly  and  persistently. 

I  leave  it  to  older  and  abler  w  omen,  who  have  labored  in  this  cause  so  long,  to  ^jrove 
whether  it  is  or  is  not  constitutional  to  give  the  ballot  to  women. 

A  gentleman  said  to  me  a  few  days  ago,  These  women  want  to  marry."  I  am  mar- 
ried ;  I  am  a  mother  ;  and  in  our  home  the  sous  and  brothers  are  all  standing  like  a 
wall  of  steel  at  my  back.  I  have  cast  aside  every  prejudice  of  the  past.  They  lie  like 
rotted  hulks  behind  me. 

After  the  fever  of  1878,  when  our  constitutional  convention  was  going  to  convene,  I 
broke  the  agony  and  grief  of  my  own  heart,  for  one  of  ujy  children  died,  and  took  part  m 
the  suffrage  movement  in  Louisiana,  with  the  wife  of  Chief- Jmstice  Merrick,  Mrs.  Sarah 
A.  Dorsey,  and  Mrs.  Harriet  Keatinge,  of  New  York,  the  niece  of  Mr.  Lozier.  These 
three  ladies  aided  me  faithfully  and  ably.  When  they  found  we  would  be  received,  I 
went  before  the  convention,  I  went  to  Lieutenant-Governor  Wiltz,  and  asked  him  if 
he  would  present  or  consider  a  petition  which  I  wished  to  bring  before  the  convention. 
He  read  the  petition.  One  clause  of  our  State  law  is  that  no  woman  can  sign  a  will. 
We  will  have  that  question  decided  before  the  meeting  of  the  next  legislature.  Some 
ladies  donated  property  to  an  asylum.  They  wrote  the  will  and  signed  it  themselves, 
and  it  was  null  and  void,  because  the  signers  were  women.  They  not  knowing  the 
law,  believed  that  they  were  human  beings,  and  signed  it.  That  clause,  perhaps, 
will  be  wiped  out.  Many  gentlemen  signed  the  petition  on  that  account.  I  took  the 
paper  around  myself.  Governor  Wiltz,  then  lieut<-nant-governor,  told  me  he  would 
present  the  petition.  He  was  elected  president  of  the  convention.  I  presented  my 
tirst  i)etitiou,  signed  by  the  best  names  in  the  city  of  New  Orleans  and  in  the  State. 

I  had  the  names  of  seven  of  the  most  prominent  physicians  there,  leading  with  the 
name  of  Dr.  Logan,  and  many  men,  seeing  the  name  of  Dr.  Samuel  Logan,  also  signed 
it.  I  went  to  all  the  ditt'erent  |)hysicians  and  n)inisters.  Three  prominent  ministers 
signed  it  for  moral  purposes  alone.  When  Mrs.  Dorsey  was  on  her  dying  bed  the  last 
time  she  ever  signed  her  name  was  to  a  letter  to  go  before  that  convention.  No  one 
believed  she  would  die.  Mrs.  Merrick  and  myself  went  before  the  conveiition.  I  was 
invited  before  the  conmiittee  on  the  judiciary.  I  made  an  impression  favorable  enough 
thereto  be  invited  before  the  convention  with  these  ladies.  I  addressed  the  conven- 
tion. We  made  the  petition  then  that  we  make  here ;  that  we,  the  mothers  of  the 
land,  are  bap^'ed  on  every  side  in  'the  cause  of  reform.  I  have  strived  hard  in  the  work 
of  reform  for  women.  I  pledged  my  father  on  his  flying  bed  that  I  would  never  cease 
that  work  until  woman  stood  wdth man  equal  before  the  law,  so  far  a^  my  efforts  could 
accomplish  it.  Fiuding  myself  baffled  in  that  work,  I  could  only  take  the  course  which 
we  have  adopted,  and  urge  the  proposition  of  the  sixteenth  amendment. 

I  beg  of  you,  gentlemen,  to  consider  this  question  apart  from  the  manner  in  which 
it  was  formerly  considered.  We,  as  the  women  of  the  nation,  as  the  motln  is,  as  the 
wives,  have  a  right  to  be  heard,  it  seems  to  me,  before  the  nation.  We  represent 
precisely  the  position  of  the  colonies  when  they  plead,  and,  in  the  words  of  Patrick 
Henry,  they  were  "spurned  with  contempt  from  the  foot  of  the  throne."  We  have 
been  jeered  and  laughed  at  and  ridiculed;  but  this  question  has  passed  out  of  the 
region  of  ridicule. 

The  moral  force  inheres  in  woman  and  in  man  alike,  and  unless  we  use  all  the  moral 
power  of  the  Government  we  certainly  cannot  exist  as  a  Government. 

We  talk  of  centralization,  we  talk  of  division;  we  have  the  seeds  of  decay  in  our 
Government,  and  unless  right  soon  we  use  the  moral  force  and  bring  it  forward  in  all 
its  strength  and  bearing,  we  certainly  cannot  exist  as  a  happy  nation.  We  do  not  exist 
as  a  hap{)y  nation  now.  This  clamor  for  woman's  suffrage,  for  woman's  rights,  for 
equal  re]>resentation,  is  extending  all  over  the  land. 

I  plead  beca  usenjy  work  has  been  combatted  in  the  cause  of  reform  CA^ery  where  that 
I  have  tried  to  accomplish  anything.  The  children  that  fill  the  houses  of  prostitution 
are  not  of  foreign  blood  and  race.  They  come  from  sweet  American  homes,  and  for 
every  woman  that  went  down  some  mother's  heart  broke.  I  plead  by  the  power  of 
the  ballot  to  be  allowed  to  help  reform  women  and  benefit  mankind. 


REMARKS  OF  MRS.  MARY  A.  STEWART,  OF  DELAWARE. 

Mrs.  Stewart;  I  come  from  a  small  State,  but  one  that  is  represented  in  this  Con- 
gress, I  consider,  by  some  of  the  ablest  men  in  the  land.  Our  State,  though  small, 
has  heretofore  possessed  and  to-day  possesses  brains.  Our  sons  have  no  more  right 
to  brains  than  our  daugliters,  yet  we  are  tied  down  by  every  chain  that  could  bind 
the  Georgian  slave  befon^  the  war.  Aye,  we  are  worse  slaves,  because  the  Georgian 
slave  could  go  to  the  sah^  block  and  tliere  be  sold.  The  woman  of  Delaware  must 
sul)mit  to  her  chains,  as  tliere  is  no  sale  for  her;  she  is  of  no  account. 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


25 


Womau  from  all  time  has  occupied  the  liij>;he.st  positions  in  the  world.  She  is  jnst 
as  competent  to-day  as  she  was  hundreds  of  years  ago.  We  are  taxed  without  leprc- 
sentation  ;  there  is  no  mistake  about  that.  The  colonies  screamed  that  to  Enj^hmd  ; 
Parliament  screamed  back,  "Be  still;  long  live  the  king,  and  we  will  help  you." 
Did  the  colonies  submit?  They  did  not.  Will  the  wonuui  of  tins  country  submit? 
They  will  not.  Mark  me,  we  are  the  sisters  of  those  hghting  Kevolut iouary  uumi  ;  we 
are  the  daughters  of  the  fathers  who  sang  back  to  England  that  they  would  not  sub- 
mit. Then,  if  the  same  blood  courses  in  our  veins  that  courses  in  yours,  dare  you  ex- 
pect us  to  submit  f 

The  white  men  of  this  country  have  thrown  out  ui)on  us,  the  women,  a  race  inferior, 
you  must  admit,  to  your  daughters,  and  yet  that  race  has  the  ballot,  and  why  ?  He 
has  a  right  to  it ;  he  earned  and  paid  for  it  with  his  blood.  Whose  blood  ])aid  for  yours  f 
Not  your  blood;  it  was  the  bloo<l  of  yf)ur  forefathers;  and  were  they  not  our  tore- 
fathers  f  Does  a  num  earn  a  l^udred  thousand  dollars  and  lie  down  ami  die,  saying, 
"  It  is  all  my  boys'  f  Not  a  bit  of  it.  He  <li<\s  saying,  "  Let  my  (;hildren,  be  they 
cri[)ples,  be  they  idiots,  be  they  boys,  or  be  they  girls,  inherit  all  my  property  alike." 
Then  let  us  inherit  the  sweet  boon  of  the  ballot  alike. 

When  our  fathers  were  driving  the  great  ship  of  state  we  were  willing  to  ride  as 
deck  or  cabin  passengers,  just  as  we  felt  disposed  ;  we  had  nothing  to  say;  but  to-day 
the  boys  are  about  to  run  the  ship  aground,  and  it  is  high  time  that  the  nmtiiers 
should  be  asking,  "What  do  you  nu>antodo?"  It  is  high  time  that  the  mothers 
should  be  denumding  what  they  .should  long  since  have  had. 

In  our  own  little  State  the  laws  have  been  very  much  modified  in  regard  to  women. 
My  father  was  the  first  num  to  blot  out  the  old  English  law  allowing  the  eldef^t  son 
the  right  of  inheritance  to  the  real  estate.  He  took  the  first  step,  and  like  all  those 
who  take  first  stejis  in  improvement  and  reform  he  received  a  mountain  of  curses 
from  the  oldest  male  heirs  ;  but  it  did  not  matter  to  him. 

Since  I  have,  by  niy  own  individual  efforts,  by  the  use  of  hard-earned  money, 
gone  to  our  legislature  time  after  time  and  have  had  this  law  and  that  law  passed  for 
the  benefit  of  the  women  ;  and  the  same  little  ship  of  state  has  sailed  on.  To-day  our 
men  are  just  as  well  satisfied  with  the  laws  of  our  State  for  the  benefit  of  women  in 
force  as  they  were  years  ago.  In  our  State  a  woman  has  a  right  to  make  a  will.  In 
our  State  she  can  hold  bonds  and  mortgages  as  her  own.  In  our  State  she  has  a  right 
to  her  own  property.  She  cannot  sell  it,  though,  if  it  is  real  estate,  sini})ly  because 
the  moment  she  marries  her  husband  has  a  life-time  right.  The  woman  does  not 
grumble  at  that;  but  s^ill  when  he  dies  owning  real  estate,  she  gets  only  the  rental 
value  of  one-third,  which  is  called  the  widow's  dower.  Now  I  think  the  man  ought 
to  have  the  rental  value  of  one-third  of  the  woman's  niaiden  property  or  real  estate, 
.Mid  it  ought  to  be  called  the  widower's  dower.  It  would  be  just  as  fair  for  one  as  for 
the  other.    All  that  I  want  is  equality. 

The  Avonien  of  our  State,  as  1  said  before,  are  taxed  without  representation.  The 
tax-gatherer  comes  every  year  and  demands  taxes.  For  twenty  years  have  I  paid 
tax  under  protest,  and  if  I  live  twenty  years  longer  I  shall  pay  it  under  protest  every 
time.  The  tax-gatherer  came  to  my  place  not  long  since.  "  Well,"  said  I,  "  good 
morning,  sir."  Said  he,  Good  morning."  He  smiled  and  said,  "I  have  come  l)oth- 
ering  you."  Said  I,  ''I  know  your  face  well.  You  have  come  to  get  a  right  nice  lit- 
tle woman's  tongue-lashing,"  Said  he,  "  I  suppose  so,  but  if  you  will  just  pay  your 
tax  I  will  leave."  I  paid  the  tax,  "But,"  said  I,  "remember  I  pay  it  under  protest, 
and  if  I  ever  pay  another  tax  I  intend  to  have  the  protest  written  and  make  the  tax- 
gatherer  sign  it  before  I  pay  the  tax,  and  if  he  will  not  sign  that  i)rotest  then  I  shall 
not  pay  the  tax,  and  there  will  be  a  fight  at  once."  Said  he,  "  Why  do  you  keej)  all 
the  time  protesting  against  ])aying  this  small  tax  f '  Said  I.  "  Whv  do  you  pay  your 
tax  ?"  "  Well,"  said  Lie,  "  I  would  not  pay  it  if  I  did  not' vote.""  Said  I,  "  that  is 
the  very  reason  w  liy  I  do  not  want  to  pay  it.  I  cannot,  vote  and  I  do  not  want  to  pay 
it."  Now  the  women  have  no  right  when  election  day  comes  around.  Who  stay  at 
home  from  the  election  ?  The  women  and  the  black  and'  white  men  who  have  been 
to  the  whipping-post..    Nice  company  to  put  your  wives  and  daughters  in. 

It  is  said  that  the  women  do  not  want  to  vote.  Here  is  an  array  of  women.  Every 
woman  sitting  here  wants  to  vote,  and  must  we  be  debarred  the  privilege  of  voting 
because'some  luxurious  woman,  rolling  around  in  her  carriage  and  pair  in  her  little 
downy  nest  that  some  good,  benevolent  nfau  has  provided  for  her,  does  not  want  to 
vote  ? 

There  was  a  society  that  existed  up  in  the  State  of  New  York  called  the  Cove- 
nanters that  never  voted.  A  man  who  belonged  to  that  sect  or  society,  a  man  whiter- 
haired  than  any  of  you,  said  to  me,  "  I  never  voted.  I  never  intende<l  to  vote.  I 
never  felt  that  1  could  conscientiously  support  a  Government  that  had  its  Ct)ustitii- 
tion  blotted  and  blackened  with  the  word  'slave,'  and  1  never  did  vote  until  after 
the  abolition  of  slavery."  Now,  were  all  you  men  disfranchised  because  that  class  or 
sect  u])  in  New  York  would  not  vote  1  Did  you  all  ])ay  your  taxes  and  stay  at  home 
and  refrain  trom  voting  because  the  Covenanters  did  not  vote  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  You 
went  to  the  election  and  told  them  to  stay  at  home  if  they  wanted  to,  but  that  you, 


26 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


as  citizens,  were  going  to  take  care  of  yourselves.  That  was  right.  We,  as  citizens, 
want  to  take  care  of  ourselves. 

One  more  thought,  arid  I  will  be  through.  The  fourteenth  and  tifteenth  ameud- 
raents  give  the  right  of  suffrage  to  women,  so  far  as  I  know,  although  you  learned 
men  perluqis  see  a  little  differently.  I  see  through  the  glass  dimly  ;  you  may  see 
tl) rough  it  after  it  is  polished  up.  The  fourteenth  aud  fifteenth  amendments,  in  my 
opij)ion,  and  in  the  opinion  of  a  great  many  smart  men  in  the  country,  and  smart 
women,  too,  give  the  right  to  women  to  vote  without  any  "ifs"  or  "ands"  about  it, 
and  the  United  States  protects  us  in  it ;  but  there  are  a  few  who  construe  the  law  to 
suit  themselves,  aud  say  that  those  amendiiients  do  not  mean  that,  because  the  Con- 
gress that  passed  the  fourteenth  and  tifteenth  amendments  did  not  mean  to  do  that. 
Well,  the  Congress  that  passed  them  were  mean  enough  for  anything  if  they  did  not 
moan  to  do  that.  Let  the  wise  Congress  of  to-day  take  tlifc  eighth  chapter  and  the 
fourth  verse  of  the  Psalms,  which  says,  "What  is  i*an,  that  Thou  art  mindful  of 
him  ?"  aud  amend  it  by  adding,    What  is  woman,  that  they  never  thought  of  her?" 


REMARKS  BY  MRS.  LUCINDA  B.  CHANDLER,  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

Mrs.  Chandler.  Gentlemen,  it  will  be  conceded  that  the  progress  of  civilization, 
all  that  lifts  humanity  above  a  groveling,  sensual,  depraved  state,  is  marked  by  the 
position,  intelligence,  and  culture  of  women.  Perhaps  you  think  that  American 
women  have  no  rightful  claim  to  present:  but  American  women  and  mothers  do  claim 
that  they  should  have  the  power  to  protect  their  children,  not  only  at  the  hearth- 
stone, but  to  supervise  their  education.  It  is  neither  presuming  nor  unwomauly  for 
the  mothers  and  women  of  the  land  to  claim  that  they  are  competent  and  best  fitted, 
and  that  it  rightfully  belougs  to  them  to  take  part  in  the  management  and  control 
of  the  schools,  and  the  instruction,  l)oth  intellectual  and  moral,  of  their  children,  and 
that  in  penal,  eleemosynary,  or  reformatory  institutions  women  should  have  positions 
as  inspectors  of  prisons,  physicians,  directors,  and  superintendents. 

I  have  here  a  brief  report  from  an  association  which  sent  me  as  a  delegate  to  the 
^iational  Woman  Sufliage  Convention,  in  which  it  is  stated  that  women  in  Pennsyl- 
vania can  be  elected  as  directors  on  school  boards  or  superintendents  of  schools,  but 
€annot  help  to  elect  those  officers.  It  must  very  readily  occur  to  your  minds  that 
when  women  take  such  interest  in  the  schools  as  mothers  must  needs  take  they  must 
feel  many  a  wish  to  control  the  election  of  the  officers,  superintendents,  and  managers 
of  the  schools.  The  ladies  here  from  New  York  City  could,  if  they  had  time,  give 
you  much  testimony  in  regard  to  the  management  of  schools  in  New  York  City,  aud 
the  need  there  of  woman's  love  and  woman's  power  in  the  schools  and  on  the  school 
boards.  I  am  also  authorized  by  the  association  which  sent  me  here  to  report  that 
the  woman-sulfragists  and  some.other  woman  organizations  of  the  city  of  Philadelphia 
have  condemned  in  resolution  the  action  of  the  governor  a  year  ago,  I  think,  in  veto- 
ing a  bill  which  passed  largely  both  houses  of  the  legislature  to  appoint  women  in- 
spectors of  prisons.    On  such  questions  woman  feels  the  need  of  the  ballot. 

The  mothers  of  this  land,  having  breathed  the  air  of  freedom  and  received  the  ben- 
efits of  education,  have  come  to  see  the  necessity  of  better  conditi  ms  to  fulfill  their 
divinely  appointed  aud  universally  recognized  office.  The  mothers  of  this  land  claim 
that  they  have  aright  to  assist  m  making  thjelaws  which  control  the  social  relations. 
We  are  under  the  laws  inherited  from  barbarism.  They  are  not  the  conditions  suited 
to  the  best  exercise  of  the  office  of  woman,  and  the  women  desire  the  ballot  to  purge 
society  of  the  vices  that  are  sure  to  disintegrate  the  home,  the  State,  the  nation. 

I  shall  not  occujiy  your  time  further  this  morning.  I  only  present  briefly  the 
mother's  claim,  as  it  is  so  universally  conceded.  We  now  have  in  our  schools  a  very 
large  majority  of  women  teachers,  aud  it  seems  to  me  no  one  can  but  recognize  the 
fact  that  mothers,  through  their  experience  in  the  family,  mothers  who  are  at  all 
■competent  and  fit  to  fulfill  their  position  as  mothers  in  the  family,  are  best  fitted  to 
understand  the  needs  and  at  least  should  have  an  equal  voice  in  directing  the  man- 
agement of  the  schools,  and  also  the  management  of  penal  and  reformatory  institu- 
tions. 

I  was  in  hopes  that  Mrs.  Wallace  would  give  you  the  testimony  she  gave  us  in  the 
convention  of  the  wonderful,  amazing  good  that  was  accomplished  in  a  reformatory 
institution  where  an  incorrigible  woman  was  taken  from  the  men's  prison  aud  became 
not  only  very  tractable,  but  very  helpful  in  an  institution  uuder  the  influence  and 
management  of  women.  That  reformatory  institution  is  managed  wholly  by  women. 
There  is  not  a  man,  ]\Irs.  Wallace  says,  in  the  building,  except  the  engineer  who  con- 
trols the  fire  departmeut.  Under  a  luanagement  wholly  by  women,  the  institution  is 
a  very  great  success.  We  feel  sure  that  in  many  ways  the  influence  and  power  that 
the  motliers  bring  would  tend  to  convert  many  conditions  that  are  now  tending  to 
destruction  through  vices,  would  tend  to  elevate  us  morally,  purify  us,  bring  us  still 
higher  in  the  standard  of  humanity,  and  make  us  what  we  ought  to  be,  a  holy  as  well 
as  a  happy  nation. 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


27 


REMARKS  BY  MRS.  SARA  A.  SPENCER,  OF  WASHINGTON. 

Mrs.  Spencer.  Miss  Susan  B.  Anthony  was  chosen  to  jnosent  tlie  constitutional 
argument  in  our  case  before  the  committee.  Unless  there  is  more  important  business 
for  the  individual  niembers  of  the  committee  than  the  protection  of  one-luilf  of  our 
population,  I  trust  tliat  the  limit  tixed  for  our  hearing  will  be  extended. 

The  Chaihmax.  Miss  Anthony  is  entitled  to  an  hour. 

Mrs.  Spencer.  Good.  Miss  Anthon3'  is  from  the  United  States;  the  whole  United 
States  (daini  her. 

Mrs.  Ai.LEN.  I  have  made  arrangements  with  Miss  Anthony  to  say  all  that  I  feel  it 
necessary  for  me  to  say  at  this  time. 

Mrs.  Spenceu.  I  have  beeu  so  informed. 


REMARKS  BY  MRS.  NANCY  R.  ALLEN,  OF  IOWA. 

Mrs.  Allen.  Mr.  Chairnuan  and  gentlemen  of  the  Judiciary  Committee  :  I  am  not 
a  State  representative,  but  I  am  a  representative  of  a  large  class  of  women,  citizens 
of  Iowa,  who  are  heavy  tax-payers.  That  is  a  subject  which  we  are  very  seriously 
contemplating  at  this  time.  There  is  now  a  petition  being  circulated  throughout  our 
State,  to  lie  presented  to  tlie  legislature,  praying  that  women  be  exempted  from  tax- 
ation until  they  have  some  voice  in  the  nuinagenieut  of  local  atl'airs  and  the  atfairs  of 
the  State.  You  may  ask.  "  Do  not  your  husbands  protect  you?  Are  not  all  the  men 
protecting  you  ?  "  \\e  answer  that  our  husbajuls  are  grand,  noble  men,  who  are  will- 
ing to  do  all  they  can  for  us,  but  there  are  uumy  Avho  have  no  husbands,  and  who 
own  a  great  deal  of  property  in  the  State  of  Iowa.  Particularly  in  great  moral  re- 
forms the  women  there  feel  the  need  of  the  ballot.  By  presenting  long  petitions  to 
the  legislature  they  have  succeeded  in  having  better  temperance  laws  enacted,  but 
the  men  have  failed  to  elect  otticials  who  will  enforce  those  laws.  Consequently  they 
have  become  as  dead  letters  upon  the  statute-books. 

I  would  refer  again  to  taxes.  I  have  a  list  showing  that  in  my  city  three  women 
pay  more  taxes  than  all  the  city  ofificials  included.  Those  women  are  good  temperance 
women.  Our  city  council  is  composed  almost  entirely  of  saloon  men  and  those  who 
visit  saloons  and  brewery  men.  There  are  some  good  men,  but  the  good  men  being 
in  the  minority,  the  voices  of  these  women  are  but  little  regarded.  All  these  otficials 
are  paid,  and  we  have  to  help  support  them.  All  that  we  ask  is  an  equality  of  rights. 
As  Sumner  said,  ''Equality  of  rights  is  the  tirst  of  rights."  If  we  can  only  be  equal 
with  man  under  the  law  it  is  all  that  we  ask.  We  do  not  propose  to  relinquish  our 
domestic  circles;  in  fact,  they  are  too  dear  to  us  for  that ;  they  are  dear  to  us  as  life 
itself;  but  we  do  ask  that  we  may  be  permitted  to  be  represented.  Equality  of  tax- 
ation without  representation  is  tyranny. 


REMARKS  BY  MISS  SUSAN  B.  ANTHONY,  OF  NEW  YORK. 

Miss  Anthony.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen:  Mrs.  Spencer  said  that  I  would 
make  an  argument.  I  do  not  propose  to"do  so,  because  I  take  it  for  granted  that  the 
members  of  this  committee  understand  that  we  have  all  the  argument  on  our  side, 
and  such  an  argument  would  be  simply  a  series  of  platitudes  and  maxims  of  govern- 
ment. The  theory  of  this  Government  from  the  beginning  has  been  perfect  equality 
to  all  the  i)eople.  That  is  shown  by  every  one  of  the  fundamental  i)rinciples,  which 
I  need  not  stop  to  repeat.  Such  being  the  theory,  the  apjdication  would  be,  of  course, 
that  all  persons  not  having  forfeited  their  right  to  representation  in  the  Government 
should  be  possessed  of  it  at  the  age  of  twenty -one.  But  instead  of  adopting  a  practice 
in  conformity  with  the  theory  of  our  Government,  we  began  lirst  by  saying  that  all 
men  of  property  were  the  ]»eople  of  the  nation  u])on  whom  the  Constitution  conferred 
equality  of  rights.  The  next  step  was  that  all  white  men  were  the  people  to  whom 
should  be  })ractioally  applied  the  fundamental  theories.  There  we  halt  to-day  and 
stand  at  a  deadlock  so  far  as  the  api)lication  of  our  theory  may  go.  We  women  have 
been  standing  before  the  American  Republic  for  thirty  years  asking  the  men  to  take 
yet  one  ste|)  further  and  extend  the  practical  api)licatiou  of  the  theory  of  equality  of 
rights  to  all  the  people  to  the  other  half  of  the  people,  the  women.  That  is  all  that 
I  stand  here  to-day  to  attempt  to  demand. 

Of  course,  I  take  it  for  granted  that  the  committee  are  in  sympathy  at  least  with 
the  reports  of  the  Judiciary  Committees  presented  both  in  the  Senate  and  the  House. 
I  remember  that  after  the  adoption  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  amendments  Sena- 
tor Edmunds  re])orted  on  the  petition  of  the  ten  thousand  foreign-born  citizetis  of 
Rhode  Island  who  were  denied  equality  of  rights  in  Rhode  Island  simply  because  of 


28 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


their  foreign  birth ;  and  in  that  report  held  that  the  amendments  were  enacted  and 
attached  to  the  Constitution  simply  for  men  of  color,  and  therefore  that  their  provis- 
ions could  not  be  so  construed  as  to  bring  within  their  purview  the  men  of  foreign 
birth  in  Rhode  Island.  Then  the  House  Committee  on  the  Judiciary,  with  Judge 
Bingham,  of  Ohio,  at  its  head,  made  a  similar  report  upon  our  petitions,  holding  that 
because  those  amendments  were  made  essentially  with  the  black  men  in  view,  there- 
fore their  provisions  could  not  be  extended  to  the  women  citizens  of  this  country  or 
to  any  class  except  men  citizens  of  color. 

I  voted  in  the  State  of  New  York  in  1872  under  the  construction  of.  those  amend- 
ments, which  we  felt  to  be  the  true  one,  that  all  persons  born  in  the  United  States,  or 
any  State  thereof,  and  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States,  were  citizens,  and 
entitled  to  equality  of  rights,  and  that  no  State  could  deprive  them  of  their  equality 
of  rights.  I  found  three  young  men,  inspectors  of  election,-^vho  were  simple  enough 
to  read  the  Constitution  and  understand  it  in  accordance  with  what  was  the  letter 
and  what  should  have  been  its  spirit.  Then,  as  you  will  remember,  I  was  prosecuted 
by  the  officers  of  the  Federal  court,  and  the  cause  was  carried  through  the  differen  t 
courts  in  the  State  of  New  York,  in  the  northern  district,  and  at  last  I  was  brought 
to  trial  at  Canandaigua.  When  Mr.  Justice  Hunt  was  brought  from  the  Supreme 
bench  to  sit  upon  that  trial,  he  wrested  my  case  from  the  hands  of  the  jury  altogether, 
after  having  listened  three  days  to  testimony,  and  brought  in  a  verdict  himself  of 
guilty,  denying  to  my  counsel  even  the  poor  privilege  of  having  the  jury  polled. 
Through  all  that  trial  when  I,  as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  as  a  citizen  of  the 
State  of  New  York  and  city  of  Rochester,  as  a  person  who  had  done  something  at  least 
that  might  have  entitled  her  to  a  voice  in  speaking  for  herself  and  for  her  class,  in  all 
that  trial  I  not  only  was  denied  my  right  to  testify  as  to  whether  I  voted  or  not,  but 
there  was  not  one  single  woman's  voice  to  be  heard  nor  to  be  considered,  except  as 
witnesses,  save  when  it  came  to  the  judg*e  asking,  Has  the  x)risouer  anything  to  say 
why  sentence  shall  not  be  pronounced?"  Neither  as  judge,  nor  as  attorney,  nor  as 
jury  was  I  allowed  any  person  who  could  be  legitimately  called  my  peer  to  speak  for 
me. 

Then,  as  you  will  remember,  Mr.  Justice  Hunt  not  only  pronounced  the  verdict  i 
of  guilty,  but  a  sentence  of  .flOO  fine  and  costs  of  prosecution.  I  said  to  him,  "May 
it  please  your  honor,  I  do  not  propose  to  pay  it;"  and  I  never  have  paid  it,  and  I 
never  shall.  I  asked  your  honorable  bodies  of  Congress  the  next  year — in  lb74 — to 
pass  a  resolution  to  remit  that  hue.  Both  houses  refused  it;  the  committees  reported 
agaiust  it;  though  through  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  in  the  House,  and  a  member  of  your 
committee,  and  Matthew  H.  Carpenter,  in  the  Senate,  there  were  plenty  of  precedents 
brought  forward  to  show  that  in  the  cases  of  multitudes  of  men  fines  had  been  remitted. 
I  state  this  merely  to  show  the  need  of  woman  to  speak  for  herself,  to  be  as  judge,  to 
be  as  juror. 

Mr.  Justice  Hunt  in  his  opinion  stated  that  suffrage  was  a  fundamental  right,  and 
therefore  a  right  that  belonged  to  the  State.  It  seemed  to  me  that  was  just  as  much 
of  a  retroversion  of  the  theory  of  what  is  right  in  our  Government  as  there  could  pos- 
sibly be.  Then,  after  the  decision  in  my  case  came  that  of  Mrs.  Minor,  of  Missouri. 
She  prosecuted  the  officers  there  for  denying  her  the  right  to  vote.  She  carried  her 
case  up  to  your  Supreme  Court,  aud  the  Supreme  Court  answered  her  the  same  way; 
that  the  amendments  were  made  for  black  men;  that  their  provisions  could  not  pro- 
tect women;  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  has  no  voters  of  its  own. 

Mrs.  Spencer.  And  you  remember  Judge  Cartter's  decision  in  my  case. 

Miss  Anthony.  Mr.  Cartter  said  that  women  are  citizens  and  may  be  qualified, 
&.C.,  but  that  it  requires  some  sort  of  legislation  to  give  them  the  right  to  vote. 

The  Congress  of  the  United  States  notwithstanding,  and  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  notwithstanding,  with  all  deference  and  respect,  I  differ  with  them  all, 
and  know  that  I  am  right  and  that  they  are  wrong.  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  as  it  is  protects  me.  If  I  could  get  a  practical  application  of  the  Constitution 
it  would  protect  me  and  all  women  in  the  enjoyment  of  perfect  equality  of  rights 
everywhere  under  the  shadow  of  the  American  flag. 

I  do  not  come  to  you  to  petition  for  special  legislation,  or  for  any  more  amendments 
to  the  Constitution,  because  I  think  they  are  unnecessary,  but  because  you  say  there 
is  not  in  the  Constitution  er.ough  to  protect  me.  Therefoie  I  ask  that  you,  true  to 
your  own  theory  and  assertion,  should  go  forward  to  make  more  constitution. 

Let  me  remind  you  thai  in  the  case  of  all  other  classes  of  citizens  under  the  shadow 
of  our  flag  you  have  been  true  to  the  theory  that  taxation  and  representation  ar<^  in- 
separable. ^Indiiins  not  taxed  are  not  counted  in  the  basis  of  representation,  and  are 
not  allowed  to  vote  ;  but  the  minute  that  your  Indians  are  counted  in  the  basis  of 
representation  and  are  alio  we  1  to  vote  they  are  taxed  ;  never  before.  In  my  State  of 
New  York,  and  in  nearly  all  the  States,  the  members  of  the  State  militia,  hundreds 
and  thousands  of  men,  are  exempted  from  taxation  on  proi)erty ;  in  my  State  to  the 
value  of  $?^()0,  and  in  inost  of  the  States  to  a  value  in  that  neighborhood.  While  such 
a  member  of  the  militia  lives,  receives  his  salary,  and  is  able  to  rarn  moTiey.  he  is  ex- 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


29 


empted  ;  but  wiien  he  dies  the  assessor  puts  his  widow's  uanie  down  upon  the  asses- 
sor's list,  and  the  tax  collector  never  fails  to  call  upon  the  widow  and  make  her  i)ay 
the  full  tax  upon  her  property.  In  most  of  the  States  cler<;ymen  are  exempted.  In 
my  State  of  New  York  they  are  exem])te(l  on  i)roperty  to  the  value  of  §1,500.  As  lon<; 
as  the  clerjjjyman  lives  and  receives  his  fat  salary,  or  his  lean  one,  as  tlie  case  may  he, 
he  is  exempted  on  that  amount  of  ])ro\)erty  ;  but  when  the  l)reath  leaves  the  body  of 
the  clertj^ynian,  and  the  widow  is  left  without  any  income,  or  wilhout  an}"  means  ot 
support,  the  State  comes  in  and  taxes  the  widow. 

So  it  is  with  regard  to  all  black  men.  In  the  State  of  New  York  up  to  the  day  of 
the  passage  of  the  tifteenth  amendment,  black  men  who  were  willing  to  renniin  with- 
out reporting  themselves  worth  as  much  as  8"^i30,  and  thereby  to  reiiniin  without  ex- 
ercising th  ' right  to  vote,  never  had  their  names  put  on  the  assessor's  list  ;  they  were 
passed  by,  while,  if  the  poorest  colored  woman  owned  .50  feet  of  real  estate,  a  little 
cabin  anywhere,  that  cohn-ed  woman's  name  was  always  on  the  assessor's  list,  and  she 
was  comi)el]ed  to  pay  her  tax.  While  Frederick  Douglas  lived  in  my  State  he  was 
never  allowed  to  vote  until  he  could  show  himself  worth  the  re(]uisite  i^2b0;  and  when 
he  did  vote  in  New  York,  he  voted  not  because  he  was  a  man,  not  because  he  was 
a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  nor  yet  because  he  was  a  citizen  of  the  State,  but 
simply  be(,'ause  he  was  worth  the  ret{uisite  amount  of  money.  In  Connecticut  both 
black  men  and  black  women  were  exem})ted  from  taxation  prior  to  the  adoption 
of  the  fifteenth  amendment.  The  law  was  amended  in  1848,  by  which  black  men 
were  thus  exempted,  and  black  women  followed  the  same  rule  in  that  State.  That, 
I  believe,  is  the  only  State  where  black  women  were  exempted  from  taxation  un- 
der the  law.  When  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  amendments  were  attached  to  the 
Constitution  they  carried  to  the  black  man  of  Connecticut  the  boon  of  the  ballot,  as 
well  as  the  burden  of  taxation,  whereas  they  carried  to  the  black  woman  of  Con- 
necticut the  burden  of  taxation,  but  no  ballot  by  which  to  protect  her  property.  I 
know  a  colored  woman  in  New  Haven,  Conn.,  worth  850,000,  and  she  never  paid  a 
penny  of  taxation  until  the  ratification  of  the  tifteenth  a.iiendment.  From  that  day 
on  she  is  compelled  to  pay  a  heavy  tax  on  that  amount  of  property. 

Mrs.  Spexcer.  Is  it  because  she  is  a  citizen  f    Please  explain. 

Miss  Anthony.  Because  she  is  black. 

Mrs.  Spencer.  Is  it  because  the  fourteenth  and  tifteenth  amendments  made  women 
citizens  ? 

Miss  Anthony.  Certainly;  because  it  declared  the  black  people  citizens. 

Gentlemen,  you  have  before  you  various  propositions  of  amendment  to  the  Federal 
Constitution.  One  is  for  the  .election  of  President  by  the  vote  of  the  people  direct. 
Of  course  women  are  not  people. 

Senator  Edmunds.  Angels. 

Miss  Anthony.  Yes  ;  angels  up  in  Heaven  or  else  devils  down  there. 
Senator  Edmunds:  I  have  never  known  any  of  that  kind. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  wish  you,  gentlemen,  would  look  down  there  and  see  the  myriads 
that  are  there.  We  want  to  help  them  and  lift  them  up.  That  is  exactly  the  trouble 
with  you,  gentlemen  ;  you  are  forever  looking  at  your  own  wives,  your  own  njothers, 
your  own  sisters,  and  your  own  daughters,  and  they  are  well  cared  for  and  protected; 
but  only  look  down  to  the  struggling  masses  of  women  who  have  no  one  to  protect 
them,  neither  husband,  father,  brother,  son,  with  no  mortal  in  all  the  land  to  protect 
them.  If  you  would  look  down  there  the  question  would  be  solved  ;  but  the  difficulty 
is  that  you  think  only  of  those  who  are  doing  well.  We  are  not  speaking  for  our- 
selves, but  for  those  who  cannot  speak  for  themselves.  We  are  speaking  for  the 
doomed  as  much  as  you.  Senator  Edmunds,  used  to  speak  for  the  doomed  on'the  plan- 
tations of  the  South. 

Amendments  have  been  proposed  to  put  God  in  the  Constitution  and  to  keep  God  out 
of  the  Constitution.  All  sorts  of  propositions  to  amend  the  Constitution  have  been 
made  ;  but  I  ask  that  you  allow  no  other  amendment  to  be  called  the  sixteenth  but 
that  which  shall  put  into  the  hands  of  one-half  of  the  entire  i)eople  of  the  nation  the 
right  to  express  th^ir  opinions  as  to  how  the  Constitution  shall  be  amended  hence- 
forth. Women  have  the  right  to.  say  whether  we  shall  have  God  in  the  Constitution 
as  well  as  men.  Women  have  a  right  to  say  whether  we  shall  have  a  national  law  or 
an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  prohibiting  the  importation  or  manufacture  of  alco- 
holic liquors.  We  have  a  right  to  have  our  opinions  counted  on  every  possible  ques- 
tion concerning  the  public  welfare. 

You  ask  us  why  we  do  not  get  this  right  to  vote  first  in  the  school  districts,  and  on 
school  questions,  or  the  questions  of  liquor  license.  It  has  been  shown  very  clearly 
why  we  need  something  more  than  that.  You  have  good  enough  laws  to-day  in  every 
State  in  this  Union  for  the  suppression  of  what  are  termed  the  social  vices:  for  the  sup- 
pression of  the  grog-shops,  the  gambling  houses,  the  brothels,  the  obscene  shows. 
There  is  plenty  of  legislation  in  every  State  in  this  Union  for  their  suppression  if  it 
could  be  executed.  Why  is  the  Government,  why  are  the  States  and  the  cities,  unable 
to  execute  those  lawsf    Simply  because  there  is  a  largo  balance  of  power  in  every  city 


30 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


that  does  not  want  those  laws  executed.  Consequently  both  parties  must  alike  cater 
to  that  balance  of  political  power.  The  party  that  puts  a  plank  in  its  platform  that 
the  laws  against  the  grog-shops  and  all  the  other  sinks  of  iniquity  must  be  executed, 
is  the  party  that  will  not  get  this  balance  of  power  to  vote  for  it,  and,  consequently, 
the  party  that  cannot  get  into  power. 

What  we  ask  of  you  is  that  you  will  make  of  the  women  of  the  cities  a  balance  of 
political  power,  so  that  when  a  mayor,  a  member  of  the  common  council,  si  supervisor, 
a  justice  of  the  peace,  a  district  attorney,  a  judge  on  the  bench  even,  shall  go  before 
the  ])e(q)le  of  tliat  city  as  a  candidate  for  the  sutfrages  of  the  people  he  shall  not  only 
be  compelled  to  look  to  the  men  who  frequent  the  grog-shops,  the  brothels,  and  the 
gambling  houses,  who  will  vote  for  hinj  if  he  is  not  in  favor  of  executing  the  law, 
but  that  he  shall  have  to  look  to  the  mothers,  the  sisters,  the  wives,  the  daughters 
of  those  deluded  men  to  see  what  they  will  do  if  he  does  not^^xecute  the  law. 

We  want  to  make  of  ourselves  a  balance  of  political  power.  What  we  need  is  the 
power  to  execute  the  laws.  We  have  got  laws  enough.  Let  me  give  you  one  little 
fact  in  regard  to  my  own  city  of  Eochester.  You  all  know  how  that  wonderful  whip, 
called  the  temperance  crusade,  roused  the  whisky  ring.  It  caused  the  whisky  force 
to  concentrate  itself  more  strongly  at  the  ballot-box  than  ever  before,  so  that  when 
the  report  of  the  elections  in  the  spring  of  1874  went  over  the  country,  the  yesnlt  was 
that  the  whisky  ring  was  triumphant,  and  that  the  whisky  ticket  was  elected  more 
largely  than  ever  before.  Senator  Thurman  will  remember  how  it  was  in  his  own 
State  of  Ohio.  Everybody  knows  that  if  my  friends,  Mrs.  Ex-Governor  Wallace,  Mrs. 
Allen,  and  all  the  women  of  the  great  West  could  have  gone  to  the  ballot-box  at 
those  municipal  elections  and  voted  for  candidates,  no  such  result  would  have  oc- 
curred ;  while  }on  refused  by  the  laws  of  the  State  to  the  women  the  right  to  have 
their  opinions  counted,  every  rumseller,  every  drankard,  every  pauper  even  from  the 
poor-house,  and  every  criminal  outside  of  the  State's  prison  came  out  on  election  day 
to  express  his  opinion  and  have  it  counted. 

The  next  result  of  that  political  event  was  that  the  ring  demanded  new  legislation 
to  protect  the  whisky  trathc  everywhere.  In  my  city  the  women  did  not  crusade  the 
streets,  but  they  said  they  would  help  the  men  to  execute  the  law.  Thej'  held  meet- 
ings, sent  out  committees,  and  had  testimony  secured  against  every  man  who  had  vio- 
lated the  law,  and  when  the  board  of  excise  held  its  meeting  those  women  assembled, 
three  or  four  hundred,  in  the  church  one  morning,  and  marched  in  a  solid  body  to  the 
common  council  chamber  where  the  board  of  excise  was  sitting.  As  one  rum-seller 
after  another  brought  in  his  petition  for  a  renewal  of  license  who  had  violated  the 
law,  those  women  presented  the  testimonv  against  him..  The  law  of  the  State  of  New 
York  is  that  no  man  shall  have  a  uenewai  who  has  violated  the  law.  But  in  not  one 
case  did  that  board  refuse  to  grant  a  renewal  of  license  because  of  the  testimony  which 
those  women  presented,  and  at  the  close  of  the  sitting  it  was  found  that  twelve  hun- 
dred more  licenses  had  been  granted  than  ever  before  in  the  history  of  ttie  State. 
Then  the  defeated  women  said  they  would  have  those  men  punished  according  to  law. 
Again  they  retained  an  attorney  and  appointed  committees  to  investigate  all  over  the 
city.  They  got  the  proper  ofticer  to  prosecute  every  rum-seller.  I  was  at  their  meet- 
ing. One  woman  reported  that  the  officer  in  every  city  refused  to  prosecute  the  liquor 
dealer  who  had  violated  the  law.  Why  ?  Beca;use  if  he  should  do  so  he  would  lose 
the  votes  of  all  the  employes  of  certain  shops  on  that  street,  if  another  he  would  lose 
the  votes  of  the  railroad  employes,  and  if  another  he  would  lose  the  German  vote,  if 
another  the  Irish  vote,  and  so  on.  I  said  to  those  women  what  I  say  to  you,  and  what 
I  know  to  be  true  to-day,  that  if  tlie  w^omen  of  the  city  of  Rochester  had  held  the 
power  of  the  ballot  in  their  hands  they  would  have  been  a  great  political  balance  of 
power. 

The  last  report  was  from  District  Attorney  Raines.  The  women  comx)lained  of  a 
certain  lager-beer-garden  keeper.  Said  the  district  attorney,  "Ladies,  you  are  right, 
this  man  is  violating  the  law,  everbody  knows  it,  but  if  I  should  prosecute  him  I 
would  lose  the  entire  German  vote."  Said  I,  "  Ladies,  do  you  not  see  that  if  the  women 
of  the  city  of  Rochester  had  the  right  to  vote,  District  Attorney  Raines  would  have 
been  compelled  to  have  stopped  and  counted,  weighed  aud  measured.  He  would 
have  said,  'If  I  prosecute  that  lager-beer  German  I  shall  lose  the  5,000  German  votes 
of  this  city,  but  if  I  fail  to  prosecute  him  and  execute  the  laws  I  shall  lose  the  votes 
of  20,000  women.'" 

Do  you  not  see,  gentlemen,  that  so  long  as  you  put  this  power  of  the  ballot  in  the 
hands  of  every  possible  man,  rich,  poor,  drunk,  sober,  educated,  ignorant,  outside  of 
the  State's  prison,  to  make  and  unmake,  not  only  every  law  and  law-maker,  but  every 
office-holder  who  has  to  do  with  the  executing  of  the  law,  and  take  the  power  from 
the  hands  of  the  women  of  the  nation,  the  mothers,  you  put  the  long  arm  of  the  lever, 
as  we  call  it  in  mechanics,  in  the  hands  of  the  whisky  power  and  make  it  utterly  im- 
possible for  regulation  of  sobrietj^  to  be  maintained  in  our  community?  The  first 
step  towards  social  regulation  and  good  society  in  towns,  cities,  and  villages  is  the 
ballot  in  the  hands  of  the  mothers  of  those  places.    I  appeal  to  you  especially  in  this 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


31 


matter.  I  do  not  know  what  you  think  about  the  proper  sphere  of  women.  It 
matters  little  what  any  of  us  think  about  it.  We  shall  each  and  every  individual 
lind  our  own  proper  sphere  if  we  are  left  to  act  in  freedom  ;  but  my  opinion  is  that 
when  the  whole  arena  of  politics  and  o;overninent  is  thrown  open  to  woniejx  they 
will  endeavor  to  do  very  much  as  they  <l()  in  their  homes;  that  tin;  men  will  look 
after  the  <^reenback  theory  or  the  hard-money  theory,  that  you  will  look  after  fnje- 
trade  or  tariff,  and  the  women  will  do  the  home  housekeeping  of  the  gov(M  iinuuit, 
which  is  to  take  care  of  the  moral  government  and  the  social  regulation  of  oui'  homo 
department. 

It  seems  to  me  that  we  have  the  power  of  government  outside  to  shape  and  control 
circumstances,  but  that  the  inside  power,  the  government  houseke(^ping,  is  i)owerless, 
and  is  compelled  to  aecept  whatever  conditions  or  circumstances  shall  be  granted. 

Therefore  I  do  not  ask  for  lifpior  suffrage  alone,  nor  foi-  school  suffrage  aloni',  be- 
cause that  would  amount  to  ru)thing.  We  must  be  able  to  have  a  voice  in  the  elec- 
tion not  oidy  of  every  law-maker,  bub  of  every  one  who  has  to  do  either  with  the 
making  or  the  executing  of  the  laws. 

Then  you  ask  why  we  do  not  get  suffrage  by  the  popular-vote  method,  State  by 
State?  I  answer  because  there  is  no  reason  why  I,  for  instauce,  sh(»uld  desire  the 
women  of  oue  State  of  this  nation  to  vote  any  more  than  the  women  of  another  State. 
I  have  no  more  interest  as  regards  the  women  of  New  York  than  I  have  as  regards  the 
women  of  Indiana,  Iowa,  or  any  of  the  States  represented  by  the  women  avIio  have 
come  u)>  here.  The  reason  why  I  do  not  wish  to  get  this  right  by  what  you  call  the 
poj)ular-vote  method,  the  State  vote,  is  because  I  believe  there  is  a  United  States 
citizenship.  I  believe  that  this  is  a  nation,  and  to  be  a  citizen  of  this  nation  should 
be  a  guaranty  to  every  citizen  of  the  right  to  a  voice  in  the  Government,  and  should 
give  to  me  my  right  to  express  my  opinion.  You  deny  to  me  my  liberty,  my  freedom, 
if  you  say  that  I  shall  have  no  A^oice  whatever  in  making,  shaping,  or  controlling  the 
conditions  of  vSoeiety  in  which  I  live.  I  differ  from  Judge  Hunt,  and  I  hope  I  am  re- 
spectful when  I  say  that  I  think  he  made  a  very  funny  mistake  when  he  said  that 
fundamental  rights  belong  to  the  States  and  only  surface  rights  to  the  National 
Government.  I  hope  you  will  agree  with  me  that  the  fundamental  right  of  citizen- 
ship, the  right  to  voice  in  the  Government,  is  a  national  right. 

The  National  Government  nuiy  concede  to  the  States  the  right  to  decide  by  a  ma- 
jority as  to  what  banks  they  shall  have,  what  laws  they  shall  enact  with  regard  to 
insurance,  with  regard  to  property,  and  any  other  question ;  but  I  insist  upon  it  that 
the  National  Government  should  not  leave  it  a  question  with  the  States  that  the  ma- 
jority in  any  State  may  disfranchise  the  minority  under  any  circumstances  whatso- 
ever. The  franchise  to  you  men  is  not  secure.  You  hold  it  to-day,  to  be  sure,  by  the 
common  consent  of  white  men,  but  if  at  any  time,  on  your  principle  of  government, 
the  majority  of  any  of  the  States  shoukl  choose  to  amend  the  State  constitution  so  as 
to  disfranchise  this  or  that  portion  of  the  white  men  by  making  this  or  that  condi- 
tion, by  all  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  and  by  the  legislation  thus  far  there  is 
nothing  to  hinder  them. 

Therefore  the  women  demand  a  sixteenth  amendment  to  bring  to  women  the  right 
to  vote,  or  if  you  please  to  confer  upon  women  their  right  to  vote,  to  protect  them  in 
it,  and  to  secure  men  in  their  right,  because  you  are  not  secure. 

I  would  let  the  States  act  upon  almost  every  other  question  by  majorities,  except 
the  power  to  say  whether  my  opinion  shall  be  counted.  I  insist  upon  it  that  no  State 
shall  decide  that  question. 

Then  the  popular- vote  method  is  an  impracticable  thing.  We  tried  to  get  negro 
suffrage  by  the  popular  vote,  as  you  will  remember.  Senator  Thurman  will  remember 
that  in  Ohio  the  Republicans  submitted  the  question  in  1867,  and  with  all  the  pres- 
tige of  the  National  Republican  party  and  of  the  State  party,  when  every  inlluence 
that  could  be  brought  by  the  power  and  the  patronage  of  the  i)arty  in  power  was 
brought  to  bear,  yet  negro  suffrage  ran  behind  the  regular  Republican  ticket  40,000. 
It  was  tried  in  Kansas,  it  was  tried  in  New  York,  and  everywhere  that  it  was  sub- 
mitted the  question  w^as  voted  down  overwhelmingly.  Just  so  we  tried  to  get  women 
suffrage  by  the  ]>oplar-vote  method  in  Kansas  in  18G7,  in  Michigan  in  1874,  in  Colo- 
rado in  1877,  and  in  each  case  the  result  was  precisely  the  same,  the  ratio  of  the  vote 
standing  one-third  for  women  suffrage  and  two-thirds  against  women  suffrage.  If  we 
wefe  to  canvass  State  after  State  we  should  get  no  better  vote  than  that.  Why  ?  Be- 
cause the  question  of  the  enfranchisement  of  women  is  a  question  of  government,  a 
(question  of  philosophy,  of  understanding,  of  great  fundamental  principle,  ami  the 
masses  of  the  hard-working  people  of  this  nation,  men  and  women,  do  not  think  u})OU 
princijiles.  They  can  only  think  on  the  one  eternal  struggle  wherewithal  to  be  fed, 
to  be  clothed,  and  to  be  sheltered.  Therefore  I  ask  you  not  to  compel  us  to  have  this 
question  settled  by  what  you  term  the  popular-vote  method. 

Let  me  illustrate  by  Colorado,  the  most  recent  State,  in  the  election  of  1877.  I  am 
happy  to  say  to  you  that  I  have  canvassed  three  States  for  this  (]uestion.  If  Senator 
Chandler  were  alive,  or  if  Senator  Ferry  were  in  this  room,  they  would  remember 


32 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


that  I  followed  in  their  train  in  Michigan,  with  larger  audiences  than  either  of  those 
Senators  throughout  the  whole  canvass.  I  want  to  say,  too,  that,  although  those 
Senators  may  have  believed  in  woman  suffrage,  they  did  not  say  much  about  it. 
They  did  not  help  us  much.  The  Greenback  movement  was  quite  popular  in  Michi- 
gan at  that'  time.  The  Republicans  and  Greenbackers  made  a  most  humble  bow  to 
the  Grangers,  but  woman  sutfrage  did  not  get  much  help.  In  Colorado,  at  the  close 
of  the  canvass,  6,666  men  voted  ''Yes."  Now,  I  am  going  to  describe  the  men  who 
voted  Yes."  They  were  native-horn  white  men,  temperance  men,  cultivated,  broad, 
generous,  just  men,  men.who  think.  On  the  other  hand.  16,007  voted  "  No."  Now, 
I  am  going  to  describe  that  class  of  voters.  lu  the  southern  part  of  that  State  there 
are  Mexicans,  who  speak  the  Spanish  language.  They  put  their  wheat  in  circles  on 
the  ground  with  the  heads  out,  and  drive  a  mule  around  to  thrash  it.  The  vast  popu- 
lation of  Colorado  is  made  uj>  of  that  class  of  people.  I  was  sent  out<  to  speak  in  a 
voting  precinct  having  200  voters;  150  of  those  voters  were  Mexican  greasers,  40  of 
them  foreign-born  citizens,  and  just  10  of  them  w^ere  born  in  this  country;  and  I 
was  supposed  to  be  competent  to  convert  those  men  to  let  me  have  as  much  right  in 
this  Government  as  they  had,  when,  unfortunately,  the  great  majority  of  them  could 
not  understand  a  word  that  I  said.  Fifty  or  sixty  Mexican  greasers  stood  against 
the  wall  with  their  hats  down  over  their  faces.  The  Germans  put  seats  in  a  lager- 
heer  saloon,  and  would  not  attend  unless  I  made  a  speech  there;  so  I  had  a  small 
audience. 

Mrs.  Archibald.  There  is  one  circumstance  that  I  should  like  to  relate.  In  the 
county  of  Las  Animas,  a  county  where  there  is  a  large  population  of  Mexicans,  and 
where  they  always  have  a  large  majority  over  the  native  population,  they  do  not 
know  our  language  at  all.  Consequently  a  number  of  tickets  must  be  printed  for 
thx)se  people  in  Spanish.  The  gentleman  in  our  little  town  of  Trinidad  who  had  the 
charge  of  the  printing  of  those  tickets,  being  adverse  to  us,  hsJd  every  ticket  printed 
against  woman  suffrage.  The  samples  that  were  sent  to  us  from  Denver  were  "for" 
or  '"against,"  but  the  tickets  that  -were  printed  only  had  the  word  "against"  on 
them,  so  that  our  friends  had  to  scratch  their  tickets,  and  all  those  Mexican  people 
who  could  not  understand  this  trick  and  did  not  know  the  facts  of  the  case,  voted 
against  woman  suffrage;  so  that  we  lost  a  great  many  votes.  This  was  man's  gen- 
erosity. 

Miss  Anthony.  Special  legislation  for  the  benefit  of  w^omau  !  I  will  admit  you 
that  on  the  floor  of  the  constitutional  convention  was  a  representative  Mexican,  in- 
telligent, cultivated,  chairman  of  the  committee  on  suffrage,  who  signed  the  petition, 
and  was  the  first  to  speak  in  favor  of  woman  suffrage.  Then  they  have  in  Denver 
about  four  hundred  negroes.  Governor  koutt  said  to  me,  "  The  four  hundred  Denver 
negroes  are  going  to  vote  solid  for  woman  suffrage."  I  said,  "  I  do  not  know  much 
about  the  Denver  negroes,  but  I  know  certainly  what  all  negroes  were  educated  in, 
and  slavery  never  educated  master  or  negro  into  a  comprehension  of  the  great  prin- 
ciples of  human  freedom  of  our  nation;  it  is  not  possible,  and  I  do  not  believe  they 
are  going  to  vote  for  us."  Just  ten  of  those  Denver  negroes  v^oted  for  woman  suftrage. 
Then,  in  all  the  mines  of  Colorado  the  vast  majority  of  the  wage  laborers,  as  you 
know,  are  foreigners.  There  may  be  intelligent  foreigners  in  this  country,  and  I  know 
there  are,  who  are  in  favor  of  the  enfranchisement  of  woman,  but  that  one  does  not 
happen  to  be  Carl  Schurz,  I  am  ashamed  to  say.  And  I  want  to  say  to  you  of  Carl 
Schurz,  that  side  by  side  with  that  man  on  the  battle-fields  of  Germany  was  Madame 
Anneke,  as  noble  a  w^oman  as  ever  trod  the  American  soil.  She  rode  by  the  side  of 
her  husband,  who  was  an  officer,  on  the  battle-field  ;  she  slept  in  battle-field  tents, 
and  she  fled  from  Germany  to  this  country  for  her  life  and  property,  side  by  side  with 
Carl  Schurz.  Now,  what  is  it  for  Carl  Schurz,  stepping  up  to  the  very  door  of  the 
Presidency  and  looking  back  to  Madame  Anneke,  who  fought  for  liberty  as  well  as  he, 
to  say,  "  You  be  subject  in  this  Republic,  I  will  be  sovereign."  If  it  is  an  insult  for 
Carl  Schurz  to  say  that  to  a  native-born  woman,  what  is  it  for  him  to  say  it  to  Mrs. 
ex-Governor  Wallace,  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton^  Lucretia  Mott,  to  the  native-born,  ed- 
ucated, tax-paying  women  of  this  Republic  ?  I  can  forgive  an  ignorant  foreigner  ;  I 
can  forgive  an  ignorant  negro  ;  but  I  cannot  forgive  Carl  Schurz. 

Right  in  the  file  of  the  foreigners  opposed  to  woman  suffrage,  educated  under  mon- 
archical governments  that  do  not  comprehend  our  principles,  whom  I  have  seen  trav- 
eling through  the  prairi-.^s  of  Iowa,  or  the  prairies  of  Minnesota,  are  the  Bohemians, 
Swedes,  Norwegians,  Germans,  Irishmen,  Menuonites ;  I  have  seen  them  riding  on 
those  magnificent  loads  of  wheat  with  those  magnificent  Saxon  horses,  shining  like 
glass  on  a  sunny  morning,  every  one  of  them  going  to  vote  "no"  against  woman  suf- 
frage. You  cannot  convert  them  ;  it  is  impossible.  Now  and  then  there  is  a  whisky 
manufacturer,  drunkard,  inebriate,  libertine,  and  what  we  call  a  fast  man,  and  a 
colored  man,  broad  and  generous  enough  to  be  willing  to  let  women  vote,  to  let  his 
mother  have  her  opinion  counted  as  to  whether  there  shall  be  license  or  no  license, 
but  the  rank  and  file  of  all  classes  who  wish  to  enjoy  full  license  in  what  are  termed 
the  petty  vices  of  men  are  pitted  solid  against  the  enfranchisement  of  women.  Then, 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


33 


in  addition  to  all  these,  there  are,  as  you  know,  a  few  relitj;ion8  bigots  left  in  the  world 
who  really  believe  that  somehow  or  other  if  women  are  allowed  to  vote  Saint  Paul 
would  feel  badly  about  it.  I  do  not  know  but  that  some  of  the  gentlemen  i)reseur  be- 
long to  that  class.  [I^aughter.]  So  when  you  put  those  best  men  of  the  nation  having 
religion  about  everything  except  on  this  one  ([uestion,  whose  predjiulices  control  them^ 
with  all  this  vast  mass  of  ignorant,  uneducated,  degraded  i>opulation  in  this  country, 
you  make  an  overwhelming  and  insurmountable  nuijority  against  the  enfranchisement 
of  women. 

It  is  because  of  this  fact  that  I  ask  you  not  to  rt>mand  us  back  to  the  States,  but  to 
submit  to  the  States  the  proposition  of  a  sixteenth  amendment.  The  popular  vote 
method  is  not  only  of  itself  an  impossibility  bnt  it  is  too  humiliating  a  i)roc('ss  to 
compel  the  women  of  this  nation  to  submit  to  any  longer. 

I  am  going  to  give  you  an  illnstration,  not  because  I  have  any  disrespect  for  the  per- 
son, because  on  nuiny  other  ([uestions  he  was  really  a  good  deal  better  than  a  good  mauy 
other  men  who  had  not  so  bad  a  name  in  this  nation.  When,  under  the  old  iriiime, 
John  Morrissey,  of  my  State,  the  king  of  gamblers,  was  a  Representative  on  the  lloor 
of  Congress,  it  was  humiliating  enough  for  Lucretia  Mott,  tor  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton, 
for  all  of  us  to  come  down  here  to  Washington  and  beg  at  the  feet  of  John  Morrissey 
that  he  would  let  intelligent,  native-born  women  vote,  and  let  us  have  as  much  right 
in  this  Government  and  in  the  government  of  the  city  of  New  York  as  he  had.  When 
John  Morrissey  was  a  member  of  the  New  York  State  legislature  it  would  have  been 
humiliating  euiuigh  for  us  to  go  to  the  New  York  State  legislatnre  and  pray  of  John 
Morrissey  to  vote  to  ratify  the  sixteenth  amendment,  giving  to  us  a  right  to  vote  :  but 
if  instead  of  a  sixteenth  amendment  you  tell  nsto  go  back  to  the  ()oj)uhir  vote  metluxl, 
the  ohl-tinie  method,  and  go  down  into  John  Movrissey's  Seventh  Congressional  dis- 
trict in  the  city  of  New  York,  and  there,  in  the  slonghs  and  slum  of  that  great  So<lom, 
in  the  grog-shops,  the  gambling-houses,  and  the  brothels,  beg  at  the  feet  of  each  in- 
dividual hsticutf  of  his  constituency  to  give  the  noble,  educated,  native-born,  tax- 
paying  women  of  the  State  of  New  York  as  much  right  as  he  has,  that  would  be  too 
bitter  a  pill  for  a  native-born  woman  to  swallow  any  longer. 

I  beg  you,  gentlemen,  to  save  us  from  the  morti  tication  and  the  humiliation  of  ap- 
pealing to  the  rabble.  We  already  have  on  our  side  the  vast  majority  of  the  better 
educated — the  best  classes  of  men.  You  will  remember  that  Senator  Christiancy,  of 
Michigan,  two  years  ago,  said  on  the  lloor  of  the  Senate,  that  of  the  40,000  men  who 
voted  for  women  suffrage  in  Michigan  it  was  said  that  there  was  not  a  drunkard, 
not  a  libertine,  not  a  gambler,  not  a  depraved,  low  man  amongst  them.  Is  not  that 
something  that  tells  for  us,  and  for  our  right  ?  It  is  the  fact,  in  every  State  of  the 
Union,  that  we  have  the  intelligent  lawyers  and  the  most  liberal  ministers  of  all  the 
sects,  not  excepting  the  Roman  Catholics.  A  Roman  Catholic  priest  preached  a  ser- 
mon the  other  day,  in  which  he  said,  "God  grant  that  there  were  a  thousand  Susan 
B.  Anthonys  in  this  city  to  vote  and  work  for  temperance."  When  a  Catholic  i)rie8t 
says  that  there  is  a  great  moral  necessity  pressing  down  upon  this  nation  demanding 
the  enfranchisement  of  women,!  ask  you  that  you  shall  not  drive  us  back  to  beg  our 
rights  at  the  feet  of  the  most  ignorant  and  depraved  men  of  the  nation,  but  that  you, 
the  representative  men  of  the  nation,  will  hold  the  (question  in  the  hollow  of  your 
hands.  We  ask  you  to  lift  this  (juestion  out  of  the  hands  of  the  rabble.  You  who  are 
here  upon  the  floor  of  Congress  in  both  Houses  are  the  picked  men  of  the  nation.  You 
may  say  what  you  please  about  John  Morrissey,  the  gambler,  ifec. ;  he  was  head  and 
shoulder  above  the  rank  and  tile  of  his  constituency.  The  world  may  gabble  ever  so 
much  about  members  of  Congress  being  corrupt  and  being  bought  and  sold  ;  they  are 
as  a  rule  head  and  shoulders  amqngst  the  great  majority  who  compose  their  State 
governments.  There  is  no  doubt  about  it.  Therefore  I  ask  of  you,  as  representative 
men,  as  men  who  think,  as  men  who  study,  as  men  who  philosophize,  as  men  who 
know,  that  you  will  not  drive  us  l)ack  to  the  States  any  more,  but  that  you  will  carry 
out  this  method  of  procedure  which  has  been  practiced  from  the  beginning  of  the 
Government;  that  is,  that  you  will  put  a  prohibitory  amendment  in  the  Constitution 
and  submit  the  proposition  to  the  several  State  legislatures.  The  amendment  which 
has  been  jiresented  before  you  reads : 

Articlk  XVI. 

Section  1.  The  right  of  suffrage  in  the  United  States  shall  be  based  on  citizenship, 
and  the  right  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  to  vote  shall  not  be  denied  or  abridged 
by  the  United  States,  or  by  any  State,  on  account  of  sex,  or  for  any  reason  not  equally 
applicable  to  all  citizens  of  the  United  States. 

Sfx.  2.  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce  this  article  by  appropriate  legislation. 

In  this  way  we  would  get  the  right  of  suffrage  just  as  much  by  what  you  call  the 
consent  of  the  States,  or  the  States'  rights  method,  as  by  any  other  method.  The  only- 
point  is  that  it  is  a  decision  by  the  representative  men  of  the  States  instead  of  by  the 

S.  Rep.  70  3 


84 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


rank  and  file  of  the  ignorant  men  of  tlie  States.  If  you  would  submit  this  proposition 
for  a  ^sixteenth  amendment,  by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  the  two  Houses,  to  the  several 
legislatures,  and  the  several  legislatures  ratify  it,  that  would  be  just  as  much  by  the 
consent  of  the  States  as  if  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry,  vdted  ''yes"  or  "no."  Is  it  not, 
Senator?  I  want  to  talk  to  Democrats  as  well  as  Republicans,  to  show  that  it  is  a 
States'  rights  method. 

Senator  Edmunds.  Doe?  anybody  propose  any  other,  in  case  it  is  done  at  all  by  the 
nation  ? 

Miss  Anthony.  Not  by  the  nation,  but  they  are  continually  driving  us  back  to  get 
it  fioiu  the  States,  State  by  State.  That  is  the  point  I  want  to  make.  We  do  not 
want  yon  to  drive  us  back  to  the  States.  We  want  you  men  to  take  the  question  out 
of  the  hands  of  the  rabble  of  the  State. 

The  Chairman,  May  I  interrupt  yon  f 

Miss  Anthony.  Yes,  sir;  I  wish  you  would. 

The  Chairman.  You  have  reflected  on  this  subject  a  great  deal.   You  think  there 
is  a  mnjority,  as  I  understand,  even  in  the  State  of  New  York,  against  woman  suffrage? 
Miss  Anthony.  Yes,  sir;  overwhelmingly. 

Tht'  Chairman.  How,  then,  would  you  get  legislatures  elected  to  ratify  such  a  con- 
stitutional amendment  f 

Miss  Anthony.  That  brings  me  exactly  to  the  point. 

Th«'  Chairman.  That  is  the  point  1  wish  to  hear  you  upon. 

I^Iiss  A.vthony.  l^ecause  the  members  of  the  State  legislatures  are  iutelligent  men 
and  can  vote  and  enact  lavvs  embodying  great  X)rinciples  of  the  Government  without 
in  any^vise  endangering  their  positions  with  tlieir  constituencies.  A  constituency 
com])osed  of  ignorant  men  would  voXa  solid  against  us  because  they  have  never  thought 
on  the  (inestion.  Every  man  or  woman  who  believes  in  the  enfranchisement  of  women 
is  educated  out  of  every  idea  that  he  or  she  was  born  into.  We  were  all  born  into 
the  idea  that  th(^  proper  s])here  of  woman  is  subjection,  and  it  takes  education  and 
thought  and  oultjire  to  lift  us  out  of  it.  Therefore  when  men  go  to  the  ballot-box 
they  all  vote  "  no,"  unless  they  have  actual  argument  on  it.  I  will  illustrate.  We 
have  six  legislatures  in  the  nation,  for  instance,  that  have  extended  the  right  to  vote 
on  scliool  (fuestionsto  the  women,  and  not  a  single  member  of  a  State  legislature  has 
ever  lost  his  ofHce  or  forfeited  the  respect  or  conindence  of  his  constituents  as  a  repre- 
sentive  because  he  voted  to  give  women  the  right  to  vote  on  scliool  questions.  It 
is  a  question  that  the  unthinking  masses  never  have  thought  upon.  They  do  not  care 
about  it  one  way  or  the  other,  only  they  have  an  instinctive  feeling  that  because  women 
never  did  vote  therefore  it  is  wrong  that  tjiey  ever  should  vote. 

Mrs,  Spp:ncer.  Do  make  the  ])oint  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  leads  the 
legislatures  of  the  States  and  educates  thein. 

Miss  Anthony,  When  you,  representative  men,  carry  this  matter  to  legislatures, 
State  by  State,  they  will  ratify  it.  My  point  is  that  you  can  safely  do  this.  Senator 
Thuriuan,  of  Ohio,  would  not  lose  a  single  vote  in  Ohio  in  voting  in  favor  of  the  en- 
franchisement of  women.  Senator  Edmunds  would  not  lose  a  single  Republican  vote 
in  the  State  of  Vermont  if  he  puts  himself  on  our  side,  which,  1  think,  he  will  do.  It 
is  not  a  political  question.  We  are  no  political  i)ower  that  can  make  or  break  either 
party  to  day.  Consequently  each  man  is  left  independent  to  express  his  own  moral 
and  intellectual  convictions  on  the  matter  without  endangering  himself  politically. 

Senator  Edmunds.  I  think.  Miss  Anthony,  you  ought  to  put  it  on  rather  higher,  I 
will  not  say  stronger,  ground.  If  you  can  convince  us  that  it  is  right  we  would  not 
stop  to  see  how  it  aifected  us  politically. 

Miss  Anthony,  I  was  coming  to  that.  I  was  going  to  say  to  all  of  you  men  in  oflfice 
here  to  day  that  if  you  cannot  go  forward  and  carry  out  either  your  Democratic  or 
your  Republican  or  your  Greenback  theories,  for  instance,  on  the  finance,  there  is  no 
great  political  power  that  is  going  to  take  you  away  from  these  halls  and  prevent 
you  from  doing  all  those  other  things  which  you  want  to  do,  and  you  can  act  outyour 
own  moral  and  intellectual  convictions  on  this  without  let  or  hindrance. 
Senator  Edmunds.  Without  any  danger  to  the  public  interests,  you  mean. 
Miss  Anthony,  Without  any  (ianger  to  the  public  interests.  I  did  not  mean  to 
make  a  bad  insinuation.  Senator. 

1  want  to  give  you  another  reason  why  we  appeal  to  you.  In  these  three  States 
where  the  question  has  been  submitted  and  voted  down  we  cannot  get  another  legis- 
lature to  resubmit  it,  because  they  say  the  people  have  expressed  their  oi)inion  and  de- 
cided no,  and  therefore  nobody  with  any  political  sense  would  resubmit  the  question. 
It  is  therefore  impossible  in  any  one  of  those  States.  We  have  tried  hard  in  Kansas 
for  ten  years  to  get  the  question  resubmitted  ;  the  vote  of  that  State  seems  to  be  taken 
as  a  finality.  We  ask  you  to  lift  the  sixteenth  amendment  out  of  the  arena  of  the 
public  mass  into  the  arena  of  tliinking  legislative  brains,  the  brains  of  the  nation, 
under  the  law  and  the  Constitution.  Not  only  do  we  ask  it  for  that  purpose,  but 
when  you  will  have  by  a  two-thirds  vote  submitted  the  proposition  to  the  several  legis- 
latures, you  have  put  the  pin  down  and  it  never  can  go  back.   No  subsecxuent  Congress 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


35 


c«an  revoke  tlint  .submistsion  of  the  i>ro|)08irioii :  there  will  be  so  imuh  gained  ;  it  can- 
not slide  back.  Then  we  will  go  to  New  York  or  to  Pennsylvania,  and  urge  upon  tho 
legiylatnres  the  ratification  of  that  ameminieut.  They  may  refuse;  they  may  vote  it 
down  the  first  time.  Then  we  will  go  to  the  next  legishitnre,  and  the  next  legisla- 
ture, and  plead  and  yilead,  from  year  to  year,  if  it  takes  ten  years.  It  is  an  ojxm  f[ues- 
tion  to  every  legislature  until  we  can  get  one  that  will  ratify  it,  and  when  that  leg- 
islature has  onee  voted  and  ratified  it  no  subsetiuent  legishition  can  revoke  their 
ratiiication. 

Thus,  you  perceive,  Senators,  that  every  stey*  we  would  gain  by  this  sixteenth 
amendment  process  is  fast  and  not  to  be  done  over  agaiti.  That  is  why  I  api)eal  to 
you  especially.  As  I  have  shown  you  in  the  respective  States,  if  we  fail  to  educate 
the  people  of  a  whole  State— and  in  Michigan  it  was  only  six  months,  and  in  Colorado 
less  than  six  months — the  State  legislatures  say  that  is  the  end  of  it.  I  appeal  to  you, 
therefore,  to  adopt  the  course  that  we  suggest. 

Gentlemen  of  the  committee,  if  there  is  a  (luestion  that  you  want  to  ask  me  before 
I  make  my  final  appeal,  I  should  like  to  have  you  put  it  now  ;  any  question  as  to  con- 
stitutional law  or  your  right  to  go  forward.  Of  course,  you  do  not  deny  to  us  that 
this  amendment  will  be  right  in  the  line  of  all  the  amendments  heretofore.  The 
eleventh,  twelfth,  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  fifteenth  amendments  are  all  in  line  prohib- 
iting the  States  from  doing  something  which  they  heretofore  thought  they  had  a 
right  to  do.  Now  we  ask  you  to  prohibit  the  States  from  denying  to  women  their 
rights. 

I  want  to  show  you  in  closing  that  of  the  great  acts  of  justice  done  during  the  war 
and  since  the  war  the  first  one  was  a  great  military  necessity.  We  never  got  one 
inch  of  headway  in  putting  down  the  rebellion  until  the  purpose  of  this  great  nation 
was  declared  that  slavery  should  be  abolished.  Then,  as  if  by  magic,  we  went  for- 
ward and  put  down  the  rebellion.  At  the  close  of  the  rebellion  the  nation  stood  again 
at  a  perfect  deadlock.  The  Rei:)ublican  party  w^as  tremblirtg  in  the  balance,  because 
it  feared  that  it  could  not  hold  its  ])osition  until  it  should  have  secured  by  legislation 
to  the  Government  what  it  had  gained  at  the  point  of  the  sword,  and  when  the  na- 
tion declared  its  purpose  to  enfranchise  the  negro  it  was  a  political  necessity.  1  do  not 
want  to  take  too  much  vainglory  out  of  the  heads  of  Republicans,  but  nevertheless 
it  is  a  great  national  fact  that  neither  of  those  great  acts  of  beneficence  to  the  negro 
race  was  dojie  because  of  any  high,  overshadowing  moral  conviction  on  the  part  of 
any  considerable  minority  even  of  the  peoj)le  of  this  nation,  but  simply  because  of  a 
military  necessity  slavery  was  abolished,  and  8im})ly  because  of  a  political  necessity 
black  men  were  enfranchised.  The  blackest  Republican  State  you  had  voted  down 
negro  suffrage,  and  that  was  Kansas  in  1^67.  Michigan  voted  it  down  in  1867:  Ohio 
voted  it  down  in  18(57.  Iowa  was  the  only  State  that  ever  voted  negro  suffrage  by  a 
majority  of  the  citizens  to  which  the  question  was  submitted,  and  they  had  not  more 
than  seventy-five  negroes  in  the  whole  State;  so  it  w^as  not  a  very  practical  question. 
Therefore,  it  may  be  fairly  said,  I  think,  that  it  was  a  military  necessity  that  compelled 
one  of  those  acts  of  justice  and  a  political  necessity  that  compelled  the  other. 

It  seems  to  me  that  from  the  first  word  uttered  by  our  dear  friend,  Mrs.  Ex-Gover- 
nor Wallace,  of  Indiana,  all  the  way  down,  we  have  been  presenting  to  you  the  lact 
that  there  is  a  great  moral  necessity  pressing  upon  this  nation  to-day  that  you  shall 
go  forward  and  attach  a  sixteenth  amendment  to  the  Federal  Constitution  which  shall 
put  in  the  hands  of  the  Avomen  of  this  nation  the  power  to  help  make,  shape,  ami  con- 
trol the  social  conditions  of  society  everywhere.  I  appeal  to  you  fron»  that  stand- 
point that  you  shall  submit  this  pro|)osition. 

There  is  one  other  ])oint  to  which  I  want  to  call  your  attention.  The  Senate  Judi- 
ciary Committee,  Senator  Edmunds,  chairman,  reported  that  the  United  States  could 
do  nothing  to  protect  women  in  the  right  to  vote  under  the  amendments.  Now,  I 
want  to  give  you  a  few  points  where  the  United  States  interferes  to  take  away  the 
right  to  vote  from  women  where  the  State  has  given  it  to  them.  In  Wyoming,  for 
instance,  by  a  Democratic  legislature,  the  women  were  enfranchised.  They  were  not 
only  allowed  to  v^te,  but  to  sit  upon  juries,  the  same  as  men.  Those  of  you  who 
read  the  reports  giving  the  results  of  that  action  have  not  forgotten  that  the  first 
result  of  women  sitting  upon  juries  was  that  wlu-rever  there  was  a  violation  of  the 
whisky  law  they  brought  in  verdicts  accordingly,  for  the  execution  of  the  law  :  and 
you  will  remember,  too,  that  the  first  man  who  ever  had  a  verdict  of  guilty  for 
murder  in  the  first  degree  in  that  Territory  was  tried  by  a  jury  made  up  largely  of 
women.  Always  up  to  that  day  every  jury  had  brought  in  a  venlict  of  shot  in  self-de- 
fense, although  the  person  shot  down  may  have  been  entirely  unarmed.  Then  in  cities 
like  Cheyenne  and  Laramie,  ])ei\sons  entered  com[>laints  against  keepers  of  houses  of 
ill-fame.  Women  were  on  the  jury,  and  the  result  was  in  every  case  that  befoi  c  the 
juries  could  bring  in  a  bill  of  indictment  the  women  had  taken  the  train  and  l<-ft  the 
town.  Why  do  you  hear  no  more  of  women  sitting  on  juries  in  that  Territory? 
Simply  because  the  United  States  marshal,  who  is  appointed  by  the  President  to  go 


36 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


to  vVyoiuiuo^,  refuses  to  })ut  tbe  uaiiies  of  \voiiieu  iuto  tbe  box  from  which  the  jury 
is  drawD.    There  the  Uuitetl  States  Government  interferes  to  take  the  right  away. 

A  Dp:legate.  I  shouhl  like  to  state  that  Governor  Hoyt,  of  Wyouiing,  who  was  the 
governor  who  signed  the  act  giving  to  women  this  right,  informed  me  that  the  right 
had  been  restored,  and  that  his  sister,  who  resides  there,  recently  sei.  ved  on  a  jury. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  am  glad  to  hear  it.  It  is  two  years  since  1  was  there,  but  I  was 
told  that  that  was  the  case.  lu  Utah  the  women  were  given  the  right  to  vote,  but  a 
year  and  a  half  ago  their  legislative  assembly  found  that  although  they  had  the  right 
to  vote  the  Territorial  law  jnovided  that  only  male  voters  should  hoi office.  The 
legislative  assembly  of  Utah  passed  a  bill  providing  that  women  should  be  eligible 
to  all  the  offices  of  the  Territory,  The  school  officers,  superintendents  of  schools,  were 
the  officers  in  particularto  vvhich  the  women  wanted  to  be  elected.  Governor  Emory, 
appointed  by  the  President  of  the  United  States,  vetoed  that*bill.  Thus  the  full  op- 
erations of  enfranchisement  conferred  by  two  of  the  Territories  has  been  stopped  by 
Federal  interference. 

You  ask  why  I  come  here  instead  of  going  to  the  State  legislatures.  You  say  that 
whenever  the  legislatures  extend  the  right  of  suffrage  to  us  by  the  constitutions  of 
their  States  we  can  get  it.  Massachusetts.  New  Hampshire,  Minnesota,  Colorado, 
Kansas,  Oregon,  all  these  States,  have  had  the  school  suffrage  extended  by  legislative 
enactment.  If  the  question  had  been  submitted  to  the  rank  and  file  of  the  people  of 
Boston,  with  66,000  men  paying  nothing  but  the  poll-tax,  they  would  have  undoubt- 
edly voted  against  letting  women  have  the  right  to  vote  for  members  of  the  school 
board;  but  their  intelligent  representatives  on  the  floor  of  the  legislature  voted  in 
favor  of  the  extension  of  the  school  suffrage  to  the  women.  The  first  result  in  Boston 
has  been  the  election  of  quite  a  number  of  women  to  the  school  board.  In  Minnesota, 
in  the  little  town  of  Rochester,  the  school  board  declared  its  purpose  to  cut  the 
women  teachers'  wages  down.  It  did  not  propose  to  touch  the  principal,  who  w^as  a 
man,  but  they  proposed  to  cut  all  the  women  down  from  $50  to  $35.  One  woman  put 
her  bonnet  on  and  went  over  the  entire  town  and  said,  "  We  have  got  a  right  to  vote 
for  this  school  board,  and  let  us  do  so."  They  all  turned  out  and  voted,  and  not  a 
single  $35  man  was  re-elected,  but  all  those  who  were  in  favor  of  paying  $.50. 

It  seems  to  be  a  sort  of  charity  to  let  a  woman  teach  school.  You  say  here  that  if 
a  woman  has  a  father,  mother,  or  brother,  or  anybody  to  support  her,  she  cannot  have 
a  place  in  the  Departments.  In  the  city  of  Rochester  they  cannot  let  a  married  woman 
teach  school  because  she  has  got  a  husband,  and  it  is  supposed  he  ought  to  support 
her.  The  women  are  working  in  the  Departments,  as  everywhere  else,  for  half  price, 
and  the  only  pretext,  you  tell  us,  for  keeping  women  there  is  because  the  Government 
can  economize  by  employing  women  for  less  money.  The  other  day  when  I  saw  a 
newspaper  item  stating  that  the  Government  proposed  to  compensate  Miss  Josephine 
Meeker  for  all  her  bravery,  heroism,  and  terrible  sufferings  by  giving  her  a  place  in 
the  Interior  Depaitraent,  it  made  my  blood  boil  to  the  ends  of  my  fingers  and  toes. 
To  give  that  girl  a  chance  to  work  in  the  Department ;  to  do  just  as  much  work  as  a 
man,  and  pay  her  half  as  much,  was  a  charity.  That  was  a  beneficence  on  the  part 
of  this  grand  Government  to  her.  We  want  the  ballot  for  bread.  When  we  do  equal 
work  we  want  equal  wages. 

Mrs.  Saxon.  California,  in  her  recent  convention,  prohibits  the  legislature  hereafter 
from  enacting  any  law  for  woman's  suffrage,  does  it  not  ? 

Miss  Anthony.  I  do  not  know.    I  have  not  seen  the  new  constitution. 

Mrs.  Saxon.  It  does.  The  convention  inserted  a  provision  in  the  constitution  that 
the  legislature  could  not  act  upon  the  subject  at  all. 

Miss  Anthony.  Everywhere  that  we  have  gone.  Senators,  to  ask  our  right  at  the 
hands  of  any  legislative  or  political  body,  we  h-ave  been  the  subjects  of  ridicule.  For 
instance,  I  went  before  the  great  national  Democratic  convention  in  New  York,  in  1868, 
as  a  delegate  from  the  New  York  Woman  Suffrage  Association,  to  ask  that  great  party, 
now  that  it  wanted  to  eome  to  the  front  again,  to  put  a  genuine  Jeffersonian  plank  in 
its  platform,  pledging  the  ballot  to  all  citizens,  women  as  well  as  men.  should  it  come 
into  power.  You  may  remember  how  Mr.  Seymour  ordered  my  petition  to  be  read, 
after  looking  at  it  in  the  most  scrutinizing  n)anner,  when  it  was  referred  to  the  com- 
mittee on  resolutions,  where  it  has  sle])t  the  sleep  of  death  from  that  day  to  this.  But 
before  the  close  of  the  convention  a  body  of  ignorant  workingmen  sent  in  a  petition 
clamoring  for  greenbacks,  and  you  remember  that  the  Democratic  i)arty  bought  those 
men  by  putting  a  solid  greenback  plank  in  the  platform.  Everybody  supposed  they 
would  nominate  Pendleton,  or  some  other  man  of  pronounced  views,  but  instead  of 
doing  that  they  nominated  Horatio  Seymour,  who  stood  on  the  fence,  politically  speak- 
ing. My  friends,  Mrs.  Stanton,  Lucretia  Mott,  and  women  who  have  brains  and  educa- 
tion, women  who  are  tax-payers,  wentthere  and  i)etitioued  for  the  luactical  application 
of  the  fundamental  principles  of  our  Government  to  one-half  of  the  ])eople.  Those 
most  ignorant  workingmen,  the  vast  mass  of  them  foreigners,  went  there,  and  peti- 
tioned that  that  great  political  party  should  favor  greenbacks.  Why  did  they  treat 
those  workingmen  with  respect,  and'  put  a  greenback  plank  in  their  platform,  and 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


37 


only  table  us,  acd  ignore  us  ?  Simply  because  the  workingnien  represented  the  power 
of  the  ballot.  They  could  make  or  unmake  the  great  Democratic  party  at  that  election. 
The  women  were  powerless.  We  could  be  ridiculed  and  ignored  with  impunity,  and 
so  we  were  laughed  at,  and  put  on  the  table. 

Then  the  Republicans  went  to  Chicago,  and  they  did  just  the  same  thing.  They 
said  the  Government  bonds  must  be  paid  in  precisely  the  currency  specified  by  the 
Congressional  enactment,  and  Talleyrand  himself  could  not  have  devised  how  not  to 
say  anything  better  than  the  Republicans  did  at  Cliica«;o  on  that  question.  Then 
tney  nominated  a  man  who  had  not  any  financial  opinions  whatever,  and  who  was 
not  known,  except  for  his  military  record,  and  they  went  into  the  campaign.  Both 
those  parties  had  this  petition  from  us. 

1  met  a  wonian  in  Grand  Rapids,  Mich.,  a  short  time  ago.  She  came  to  me  one 
morning  and  told  me  about  the  obscene  shows  licensed  in  that  city,  and  said  that  she 
thought  of  memorializing  the  legislature.  I  said,  Do  ;  you  cannot  do  anything 
else;  yon  are  helpless,  but  you  can  petition.  Of  course,  they  will  laugh  at  you." 
Notwithstanding,  I  drew  up  a  petition  and  she  circulated  it.  Twelve  hundred  of  the 
best  citizens  signed  that  petition,  and  the  lady  carried  it  to  the  legislature,  just  as  Mrs. 
Wallace  took  her  petition  in  the  Indiana  legislature.  They  read  it,  laughed  at  it,  and 
laid  it  on  the  table  :  and  at  the  close  of  the  session,  by  a  unanimous  vote,  they  re- 
tired in  a  solid  body  to  witness  the  obscene  show  themselves.  After  witnessing  it, 
they  not  only  allowed  the  license  to  continue  for  that  year,  but  they  have  licensed 
it  every  year  from  that  day  to  this,  against  all  the  protests  of  the  petitioners. 
[Laugliter.  ] 

Senator  Edmunds.  Do  not  think  we  are  Avanting  in  respect  to  you  and  the  ladies 
here  because  you  say  something  that  makes  us  laugh. 

Miss  Anthony.  You  are  not  laughing  at  me  ;  you  are  treating  me  respectfully,  be- 
cause you  are  hearing  my  argument  ;  you  are  not  asleep,  not  one  of  you,  and  I  am  de- 
lighted. 

Now,  I  am  going  to  tell  you  one  other  fact.  Seven  thousand  of  the  best  citizens  of 
Illinois  petitioned  the  legislature  of  1S77  to  give  them  the  poor  privilege  of  voting  on 
the  license  question.  A  gentleman  presented  their  petition ;  the  ladies  were  in  the 
lobbies  around  the  room.  A  gentleman  made  a  motion  that  the  president  of  the  State 
Association  of  the  Christian  Temperance  Union  be  allowed  to  address  the  legislature 
regarding  the  petition  of  the  memorialists,  when  a  gentleman  sprang  to  his  feet,  and 
said  it  \\  as  well  enough  for  the  honorable  gentleman  to  present  the  petition,  and  have 
it  received  and  laid  on  the  table,  but  '*  for  a  gentleman  to  rise  in  his  seat  and  propose 
that  the  valuable  time  of  the  honorable  gentlemen  of  the  Illinois  legislature  should  be 
consumed  in  discussing  the  nonsense  of  those  women  is  going  a  little  too  far.  I  move 
that  the  sergeant-at-arms  be  ordered  to  clear  the  hall  of  the  house  of  representatives 
of  the  mob  referring  to  those  Christian  women.  Now,  they  had  had  the  lobbyists 
of  the  whisky  ring  in  that  legislature  for  years  and  years,  not  only  around  it  at  respect- 
ful distances,  but  inside  the  bar,  and  nobody  ever  made  a  motion  to  clear  the  halls  of 
the  whisky  mob  there.    It  only  takes  Christian  women  to  make  a  mob. 

Mrs.  Saxon.  We  were  treated  extremely  respectfully  in  Louisiana.  It  showed 
plainly  the  temper  of  the  convention  when  the  present  governor  admitted  that 
woman  suffrage  was  a  fact  bound  to  come.  They  gave  us  the  privilege  of  having 
women  on  the  school  boards,  but  then  the  officers  are  appointed  by  men  who  are  poli- 
ticians. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  want  to  read  a  few  words  that  come  from  good  authority,  for 
black  men  at  least.  I  find  here  a  little  extract  that  I  copied  years  ago  from  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Standard  of  1870.  As  you  know,  Wendell  Phillips  was  the  editor  of  that  paper 
at  that  time  : 

*'A  man  with  the  ballot  in  his  hand  is  the  master  of  the  situation.  He  defines  all 
his  other  rights;  what  is  not  already  given  him  he  takes.'' 

That  IS  exactly  what  we  want,  Senators.  The  rights  you  have  not  already  given 
us ;  we  want  to  get  in  such  a  position  that  we  can  take  them. 

''The  ballot  makes^every  class  sovereign  over  its  own  fate.  Corruption  may  steal 
from  a  man  his  independence  :  capital  may  starve,  and  intrigue  fetter  him,  at  times; 
but  against  all  these,  his  vote,  intelligently  and  honestly  cast,  is,  in  the  long  run,  his 
full  protection.  If,  in  the  struggle,  his  fort  surrenders,  it  is  only  because  it  is  betrayed 
from  within.  No  power  ever  permanently  wronged  a  voting  class  without  its  own 
consent." 

Senators,  I  want  to  ask  of  you  that  you  will,  by  the  law  and  parliamentary  rules  of 
your  committee,  allow  us  to  agitate  this  question  by  publishing  this  report  and  the 
report  which  you  shall  make  upon  our  i)etitions,  as  I  hope  you  will  make  a  report.  If 
your  committee  is  so  pressed  with  business  that  it  cannot  possibly  consider  and  report 
upon  this  question,  I  wish  some  of  you  would  make  a  motion  on  the  lloor  of  the  Senate 
that  a  special  committee  be  appointed  to  take  the  whole  question  of  the  enfranchise- 
ment of  women  into  consideration,  and  that  that  committee  shall  have  nothing  else 
to  do.    This  off-year  of  politics,  when  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  to  try  how  not  to  do 


38 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


it  (politically,  I  mean,  I  am  not  speaking  personally),  is  the  best  time  you  can  have 
to  consider  the  question  of  woman  suffrage,  and  I  ask  you  to  use  your  influence  with 
the  Senate  to  have  it  specially  attended  to  this  year.  Do  not  make  us  come  here 
thirty  years  longer.  It  is  twelve  years  since  the  first  time  I  came  before  a  Senate  com- 
mittee. 'I  said  then  to  Charles  Sumner,  if  I  could  make  the  hciiorable  Senator  from 
Massachusetts  believe  that  I  feel  the  degradation  and  the  humiliation  of  disfranchise- 
ment precisely  as  he  would  if  his  fellows  had  adjudged  him  incompetent  from  any 
cause  whatever  from  having  his  opinion  counted  at  the  ballot-box  we  should  have  our 
ri^ht  to  vote  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye. 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  SARA  A.  SPENCER,  OF  WASHINGTON. 

Mrs.  Spencek.  Congress  printed  10,000  copies  of  its  proceedings  concerning  the 
memorial  services  of  a  dead  man.  Professor  Henry.  It  cost  me  three  months  of  hard 
work  to  have  3,000  copies  of  our  arguments  last  year  before  the  Committee  on  Privi- 
leges and  Elections  printed  for  10,000,000  living  women.  I  ask  that  the  committee 
will  have  printed  10,000  copies  of  this  report. 

The  Chairman.  The  committee  have  no  power  to  order  the  printing.  That  can 
only  be  done  by  the  order  of  the  Senate.  A  resolution  can  be  offered  to  that  effect  in 
the  Senate.  I  have  only  to  say,  ladies,  that  you  will  admit  that  we  have  listened  to 
you  with  great  attention,  and  I  can  certainly  say  with  very  great  interest.  What  you 
have  said  will  be  duly  and  earnestly  considered  by  the  committee. 

Mrs.  Wallace.  I  wish  to  make  just  one  remark  in  reference  to  what  Senator  Thur- 
man  said  as  to  the  popular  vote  being  against  woman  suffrage.  The  popular  vote  is 
against  it,  but  not  the  popular  voice.  Owing  to  the  temperance  agitation  in  the  last 
six  years  the  growth  of  the  suffrage  sentiment  among  the  wives  and  mothers  of  this, 
nation  has  largely  increased. 

Mrs.  Spen.cer.  In  behalf  of  the  women  of  the  United  States,  permit  me  to  thank  the 
Senate  Judiciary  Committee  for  their  respectful,  courteous,  and  close  attention. 

o 


